Dhaka-based ed-tech startup 10 Minute School announced that it has raised $2 million in a seed funding round led by Sequoia Capital’s Surge. This is Sequoia India’s second investment in Bangladesh and first investment in a Bangladeshi ed-tech startup. Previously, the venture capital firm invested in B2B commerce startup ShopUp.
With the fresh capital, 10 Minutes School aims to invest in product development, technology, and talent acquisition. The company says it plans to launch live classes, courses for HSC and SSC, admission and BCS programs, interactive academic books for classes 3-12, and more upskilling courses.
Founded by Ayman Sadiq and his co-founder Abdullah Abyad Raied in 2015, 10 Minute School has built a mobile-first online learning platform and provides affordable and accessible quality educational content to school and college students, university admission test candidates, job-seekers, and people looking for specialized skills training. The company says it currently has 25,000+ classes and skills courses on its platform with over 50,000 quizzes and other teaching materials for students.
10 Minute School is one of the early players in Dhaka’s ed-tech scene. The company in fact has helped build the early online education market in Bangladesh. While it started small, the company has experienced excellent growth over the past few years. The pandemic has helped accelerate that growth. In 2021 alone, the company claims, it has acquired nine million new learners, delivered eight million learning hours, and added another 17,000+ new videos to its learning ecosystem. The company’s mobile app claims to have more than three million users.
Education technology companies have seen accelerated growth and equally increased attention from investors across markets over the last few years. The pandemic has taken that to a completely new level.
We predicted last year that more funding activities will happen in Dhaka’s ed-tech space. We wrote in EdTech Startup Shikho Raises $1.3M in Seed Funding: “Over the past few years, investors have shown increasing interest in EdTech. In India, Bangladesh's neighbor, several large players exist in the vertical, including Byju's, and the vertical is well known for attracting large investments. The fact that Shikho has raised new investment is a testament to this new market reality and that things are about to change for the vertical in Bangladesh.”
10 Minute School says it aims to democratize education in Bangladesh. With this fresh investment into the company, we can hope that the online education market is about to change in Bangladesh.
