Nas Academy, a Singapore-based education technology startup that caters to the creator economy, has raised $12 million in fresh funding from a clutch of investors.
The round was also backed by other investors, including Pitango, BECO Capital, FTX, and HOF Capital, as well as Patreon co-founder Jack Conte and Zerodha co-founder Nikhil Kamath.
The fresh capital will be used to support the platform’s global engineering and product teams as well as to grow its Web3 offering.
Founded in 2020 by Nuseir Yassin, the creator of Nas Daily – known for its one-minute videos on Facebook, Nas Academy allows creators to set up an academy in just a few easy steps on its platform. The platform allows creators to create a new course, market to students, get discovered, and interact with classrooms full of virtual students who want to learn from them. Its founding and leadership team, who are experienced creators themselves, help onboard, coach, and grow the ‘academies’.
Nas Academy is on a mission to empower creators through technology. The company believes that creators can fix that gap with better technology and world-class learning experiences. Learning at Nas Academy is entirely classroom-based. Students from around the world learn together in batches and interact with each other directly on the platform through a learning portal, WhatsApp Group, Zoom sessions with a trainer, and individual sessions with the creator.
Commenting on the investment, Founder and CEO of Nas Academy, Nuseir Yassin said in a statement,
“We see a massive opportunity in building community tools for creators, and we are using this funding to double down on our product offerings.”
The startup aims to enable millions of creators to share their knowledge by building a creator school that offers a range of courses that help creators learn new skills , connect with each other and monetize their presence. It claims to have catered to students from over 110 countries.
Last year, the firm ran into controversy in the Philippines over an online course meant to be offered in collaboration with acclaimed tattoo artist Apo Whang-Od. Earlier, EdTech platform announced that it will expand its team to 1,000 people in the next five years.
In July 2021, Nas Academy had raised 11 million in a Series A funding round led by Lightspeed Venture Partners. Other investors including TechAviv Founder Partners, 500 Startups, Graph Ventures, FreshFund, among others also participated in this round. To date, the company has raised $23 million so far to build such products.