Shikho, a Bangladeshi education technology startup, has raised $175,000 in a Pre-Seed funding round to democratize access to a high-quality education.
The Dhaka-based startup secured the latest capital from existing investor LearnStart, the seed fund of Silicon Valley-based venture capital firm Learn Capital, and Zubair Siddiky and Ambareen Reza, the Co-founders and Managing Directors of FoodPanda Bangladesh.
Founded in 2019, Shikho is on a mission to revolutionize the way Bangladesh learns today and democratize access to a high quality education. The company has a team of ambitious engineers, educators and product designers, who are passionate about creating a unique and world-class mobile learning application, designed specifically for the Bangladeshi national curriculum.
Shikho’s pilot product went live in October this year with the full course for the Class 9 and 10 Secondary School Certificate (SSC) General Mathematics syllabus. The course includes over 700 minutes of footage across 80 high-quality animated video lessons, 3,500 questions and detailed solutions, over 700 notes and 1,000 diagrams, making it the first comprehensive and structured SSC-based digital learning course of its kind in the country.
Don Burton, Managing Partner at LearnStart, said, “We continue to be impressed with the quality of execution and are very excited about Shikho’s plans for 2021.”
Shikho’s learning app also includes features such as in-app testing, automated analysis and reporting of results, a recommendation engine that prompts students to watch videos based on their testing performance, and a variety of gamification features that allow students to earn points and badges as they progress through their syllabus.
The startup is said to be working on several exciting app features and will be introducing new courses for the Higher Secondary Certificate (HSC) syllabus in the coming months.
“I am confident in Shikho’s vision of transforming how Bangladesh learns today and creating meaningful social impact by reaching students nationwide with unique, high-quality and structured learning programs,” said Zubair Siddiky on the funding.
With the funding, Zubair has joined Shikho’s board, bringing his years of leadership experience in building and scaling one of the country’s largest food delivery and logistics operations.
Shikho claimed its app has already been downloaded over 20,000 times since launching, and it is witnessing a healthy and growing paid subscriber base. The company said that 40% of these subscribed users come from rural areas of Bangladesh, which showcases the enormous social impact potential of the product, and reinforces the company’s mission to use technology to democratize access to a high-quality education.
Shikho has raised a total of $275k till date. According to a statement, the company plans to raise a larger seed round in 2021.
