Genius Group has recently announced that its EdTech arm, GeniusU Ltd, has raised $1.5 million in a seed round to support the development of its Genius Metaversity virtual learning plans.
The startup received the latest funding from existing GeniusU Ltd investors purchasing new ordinary shares of GeniusU Ltd at $24.39 per share, valuing GeniusU at $250 million. Genius Group Ltd is the majority owner of GeniusU with approximately 97% ownership of GeniusU Ltd.
GeniusU has attracted over 2.8 million students and 10,300 partners to its online learning platform, delivering interactive courses and assessments in entrepreneurship, investing, and 21st-century skills.
With the fresh funding, GeniusU plans to extend its courses and programs to interactive learning environments in the metaverse, with students and faculty connecting and learning in global classrooms and virtual 3D environments. It also plans to integrate each student’s AI-based virtual assistant ‘Genie’ into the metaverse as 3D virtual assistants that accompany each student on their personalized journey and integrate its GEMs (Genius Education Merits) student credits into the metaverse. GEMs are earned by students as they learn and can be spent on products and services within GeniusU and counting towards their certifications.
Speaking about the platform, Genius Group CEO, Roger James Hamilton, said,
“Our mission is to develop an entrepreneur education system that prepares students for the 21st century. We believe Web3 and the Metaverse provides students and teachers with an enhanced way to interact and learn in a global classroom. Our plan is to develop a blended solution of real-life, online and virtual learning to gamify learning and make it far more engaging and fun, working with students in real time around the world.”
The funding round was opened in February 2022 and completed in May 2022. It comes after the campus subsidiary of Genius Group, Entrepreneur Resorts, raised $0.9 million from existing Entrepreneur Resorts investors who purchased new ordinary shares in Entrepreneur Resorts in December 2021 at $2.75 per share. Entrepreneur Resorts Ltd is a public company listed on the Seychelles Stock Exchange. Genius Group Ltd is also the majority owner of Entrepreneur Resorts with approximately 95% ownership of the company.
Genius Group is a world-leading entrepreneur EdTech and education group, with a mission to disrupt the current education model with a student-centered, lifelong learning curriculum that prepares students with the leadership, entrepreneurial, and life skills to succeed in today’s market. The group has over 2.8 million students in 200 countries, ranging from ages 0 to 100.
The group includes four pre-IPO companies (the “Pre-IPO Group”), and four IPO Acquisitions. The Pre-IPO Group includes Genius Group, GeniusU, Entrepreneurs Institute, and Entrepreneur Resorts. This group of entrepreneur education companies has grown through organic growth and acquisitions, with a focus on adding value to each company through GeniusU, which is being developed to provide AI-driven personal recommendations and guidance for each student. The four IPO Acquisitions include Education Angels, which provides early learning in New Zealand for children from 0-5 years old; E-Square, which provides primary and secondary school education in South Africa; University of Antelope Valley, which provides vocational certifications and university degrees in California, USA; and Property Investors Network, which provides property investment courses and events in England.
