Warning: session_start(): open(/opt/alt/php72/var/lib/php/session/sess_ca74c8c0966bc3df10d4a1a7a5a20e87, O_RDWR) failed: Disk quota exceeded (122) in /home/shweuqjw/awajludhianaki.org/wp-content/plugins/jnews-social-login/class.jnews-social-login.php on line 83

Warning: session_start(): Failed to read session data: files (path: /opt/alt/php72/var/lib/php/session) in /home/shweuqjw/awajludhianaki.org/wp-content/plugins/jnews-social-login/class.jnews-social-login.php on line 83
YC-backed Kidato raises $1.4M seed to scale its online school for K-12 students in Africa – TechCrunch - Awaj Ludhiana Ki
Sunday, June 8, 2025
  • Home
  • National
  • International
  • Movies
  • Technology
  • Business
  • Fitness
  • Lifestyle
  • Punjab
  • Contact us
No Result
View All Result
No Result
View All Result
Home Technology

YC-backed Kidato raises $1.4M seed to scale its online school for K-12 students in Africa – TechCrunch

by author
April 26, 2021
in Technology
0
YC-backed Kidato raises $1.4M seed to scale its online school for K-12 students in Africa – TechCrunch
0
SHARES
37
VIEWS
Share on FacebookShare on Twitter


In public schools across Africa, classrooms are often overcrowded and this affects how teachers and students interact. The large classroom creates too much work for teachers leaving students’ individual problems unattended.

Private schools are modeled to fix these issues, but they can be expensive for the average African middle-class professional with kids. Kidato, an online school for K-12 students in Africa, presents another alternative and is announcing today that it has closed its $1.4 million seed investment.

The investors who participated in the round are Learn Start Capital, Launch Africa Ventures Fund, Graph Ventures and Century Oak Capital, among other notable local and global angel investors.

Kidato was founded by Kenyan serial entrepreneur Sam Gichuru in 2020. As a father of three kids, he encountered similar problems facing the average Kenyan middle-class professional, one of which was struggling to keep up with private school exorbitant tuition fees as high as $8,000 yearly.

“I have three kids. I moved them from private schools to homeschooling because that was the next option to give them the same quality of education but at an affordable price,” Gichuru told TechCrunch. That was when I started noticing the other challenges private schools had.”

First is the overcrowded nature of these schools. Typically, public schools have a teacher-to-student ratio of 1:50 while private schools are at 1:20.  “Depending on how much you pay for school fees. The more prestigious the school, the smaller the teacher-to-student ratio. That for me was a big indicator that you want to have a small number of students per teacher,” added Gichuru.

Then there’s the issue of long and tiring commutes for students. Gichuru tells me that kids going to private schools in Nairobi would have to wake up by 5 a.m., prepare to get on the bus at 6 a.m. to get to school at 7 a.m.

Like any homeschooling model, Gichuru had teachers come to his house to teach his kids what they’d ordinarily learn in school. But when the pandemic hit, he had to find another alternative by building a platform around Zoom for these teachers to continue delivering lessons for his kids. By September, the platform had opened up to accommodate 10 more children outside his home. In January, the number of students in its learning-from-home program increased to 30 students.

It is easy to see why the product is catching on with parents. Due to the pandemic, video services like Zoom have become the norm for the middle class in Africa with high internet accessibility. Also, cutting commute time helps to spend more time with family while reducing costs.

Kidato

Image Credits: Kidato

Building an online school for kids while capitalizing on the advantages of parents’ new remote work culture also got the Kenyan startup accepted into Y Combinator in January. Since then, Kidato has onboarded more than 50 students and claims to be growing at a 100% quarter on quarter. 

Related posts

With Wickr purchase, AWS enters the encrypted messaging business – TechCrunch

With Wickr purchase, AWS enters the encrypted messaging business – TechCrunch

June 25, 2021
Mercuryo raises $7.5M for crypto-focused, cross-border payments after crossing $50M in ARR – TechCrunch

Mercuryo raises $7.5M for crypto-focused, cross-border payments after crossing $50M in ARR – TechCrunch

June 25, 2021

Gichuru says Kidata wants to ensure better learning outcomes in smaller personalized class sizes. It is also offering the same international curriculum but with an average of 1:5 teacher-student ratio.

The company has also implemented after-school programs like robotics and chess, art, coding, and debate classes. Typically, they are usually found among students from affluent schools; however, they are being democratized by Kidato to the more than 700 registered students using its platform. The students mainly from Canada, Kenya, Malawi, Switzerland, Tanzania, UK, United States, and UAE pay $5 per lesson, the company revealed.

Kidato wants to make learning fun and gratifying. According to Gichuru, the business trains its 300-plus teachers on how to make classes interactive by using the context of arcade games like Minecraft and Roblox to tailor lessons taught to students in different subjects.

“Drawing from our understanding about how these platforms work and how kids learn from them, we have built-in behavior reward mechanisms such as lesson merits into our teaching methods resulting in interesting and enjoyable virtual classes,” an excerpt from the statement read.

But what happens when Kidato meets a demand and supply problem. While its product seems appealing for students, will Kidato find enough qualified teachers to meet the growing demand? The CEO holds that his company has it figured out.

Most private schools shut down during the lockdowns. Though some are beginning to re-open gradually, they are embarking on a recovery process with increased school fees and reduced teachers’ salaries. This has presented a big opportunity for Kidato as it currently has a waitlist of 3,000 teachers who are being swayed by Kidato’s promise of better pay. In the long run, this number creates a pipeline for 15,000 students.  

Besides, Kidato doesn’t incur infrastructural costs like real estate, a feature common with traditional schools. Therefore the revenue made from students doesn’t go into any extreme costs, which means more money for teachers.

“Our teachers are paid at least one and a half times more than the average teacher in a private school, and that has driven a great supply of teachers to us.”

Kidato’s revenue split with teachers is 70/30; teachers take the larger percentage. Gichuru adds that if teachers combine their efforts in both normal and afterschool classes, they can earn an average of $2,000 per month.

Image Credits: Sam Gichuru

One would’ve thought that a challenge Kidato would be facing despite its progress would be internet and power but that’s not the case. It is the skepticism of whether Kidato can offer socialization for the students. To solve that, Kidato is adopting an offline approach by leveraging the connections of corporates and align its after-school classes to include monthly educational field trips.

“We’re trying to show them how well kids socialize on our platform. We are partnering with companies that can make it possible to take these kids to plantations, factories, planetariums,” the CEO added.

Kidato is Gichuru’s second stint at Y Combinator. The entrepreneur who founded one of Kenya’s well-known incubator Nailab, also co-founded recruitment platform, Kuhustle. The company which seems to be in pilot mode at the moment, took part in Y Combinator Fellowship program in 2016.

Kidato has some high expectations given the CEO’s experience and as the only edtech startup in this current batch. The company, also backed by an Ivy league university endowment fund will use the seed financing for growth and product development as it hopes to replace brick-and-mortar schools. In Gichuru’s words regarding the company’s future, he said, “in the next couple of years, we want to have the biggest online school for K-12 students.” 



Source link

Previous Post

Archer couple of Deepika Kumari and Atanu Das shoot triple gold as India finish with four medals | Other Sports News

Next Post

Kashmir: Time to move ahead

Related Posts

With Wickr purchase, AWS enters the encrypted messaging business – TechCrunch
Technology

With Wickr purchase, AWS enters the encrypted messaging business – TechCrunch

June 25, 2021
Mercuryo raises $7.5M for crypto-focused, cross-border payments after crossing $50M in ARR – TechCrunch
Technology

Mercuryo raises $7.5M for crypto-focused, cross-border payments after crossing $50M in ARR – TechCrunch

June 25, 2021
Kaszek Ventures leads a $15 million round in Chilean asset management startup, Fintual – TechCrunch
Technology

Kaszek Ventures leads a $15 million round in Chilean asset management startup, Fintual – TechCrunch

June 25, 2021
Kayak co-founder Paul English just launched Moonbeam, a podcast discovery app – TechCrunch
Technology

Kayak co-founder Paul English just launched Moonbeam, a podcast discovery app – TechCrunch

June 25, 2021
Gotrade gets $7M led by LocalGlobe to let investors around the world buy fractional shares of U.S. stocks – TechCrunch
Technology

Gotrade gets $7M led by LocalGlobe to let investors around the world buy fractional shares of U.S. stocks – TechCrunch

June 25, 2021
To sustain diversity, investors must tune into their unconscious biases – TechCrunch
Technology

To sustain diversity, investors must tune into their unconscious biases – TechCrunch

June 24, 2021
Next Post
Kashmir: Time to move ahead

Kashmir: Time to move ahead

Leave a Reply Cancel reply

Your email address will not be published. Required fields are marked *

RECOMMENDED NEWS

Entire medical system ‘Ram bharose’ in small cities, villages of UP: Allahabad HC on COVID-19 situation | India News

Entire medical system ‘Ram bharose’ in small cities, villages of UP: Allahabad HC on COVID-19 situation | India News

4 years ago
Facing Heat For Remarks On Hema Malini, Randeep Surjewala Says ‘Video Distorted By BJP | India News

Facing Heat For Remarks On Hema Malini, Randeep Surjewala Says ‘Video Distorted By BJP | India News

1 year ago
Davis Cup 2021: Spain to defend title without Rafael Nadal, young Carlos Alcaraz replaces him | Tennis News

Davis Cup 2021: Spain to defend title without Rafael Nadal, young Carlos Alcaraz replaces him | Tennis News

4 years ago
New Mexico declares emergency in wake of multiple wildfires | World News

New Mexico declares emergency in wake of multiple wildfires | World News

3 years ago

BROWSE BY CATEGORIES

  • Animals
  • Architecture
  • Automobiles
  • Business
  • Culture
  • Fitness
  • International
  • Lifestyle
  • Movies
  • National
  • Sports
  • Technology
  • Travel

BROWSE BY TOPICS

Architecture culture Fitness indian architecture indian culture indian culture and heritage indian news lifestyle national news Technology technology news Travel travelling

About Us

Awaj Ludhiana Ki

Address

2667/3, Kishore Nagar, Tajpur & Jail Road, Ludhiana – 141008

Recent News

  • Chhal Kapat: The Deception trailer out: Shriya Pilgaonkar starrer Zee5 show to start streaming from June 6, watch : Bollywood News
  • Indian Navy Set To Induct First Anti-Submarine Shallow Water Warship ‘Arnala’ On June 18 | India News
  • Rahul Gandhi Claims Maharashtra-Like Poll Rigging Will Happen In Bihar; BJP Hits Back With ‘Fake Narrative’ Jibe | India News
  • China To Give Pakistan Most Advanced J-35A Stealth Fighter With 400-KM PL-17 Missiles; How Will India Counter The Threat? | World News
  • Rekha starrer Umrao Jaan gets 4K re-release in cinemas from June 27: “None of us could have imagined the timelessness of the film” : Bollywood News

Category

  • Animals
  • Architecture
  • Automobiles
  • Business
  • Culture
  • Fitness
  • International
  • Lifestyle
  • Movies
  • National
  • Sports
  • Technology
  • Travel

Search

No Result
View All Result

Email

contact@awajludhianaki.org

  • About
  • Advertise
  • Careers

Copyright © 2019 Awaj Ludhiana Ki or it's affiliates | Website by Awaj Ludhiana Ki Team

No Result
View All Result
  • Home
  • Contact us
  • Animals
  • Architecture
  • Automobiles
  • Business
  • Culture
  • Fashion
  • Fitness
  • Food
  • International
  • Lifestyle
  • Movies
  • National
  • Sports
  • Technology
  • Travel
  • Punjab

Copyright © 2019 Awaj Ludhiana Ki or it's affiliates | Website by Awaj Ludhiana Ki Team

Login to your account below

Forgotten Password?

Fill the forms bellow to register

All fields are required. Log In

Retrieve your password

Please enter your username or email address to reset your password.

Log In