Pakistan’s EdTech startup, Maqsad, picks $2.8M to make education more accessible to 100 million Pakistani students

Leading EdTech startup in Pakistan, Maqsad, has revealed a $2.8 million seed round headed by Speedinvest and previous investor Indus Valley Capital.

According to a formal statement issued by the company, Stellar Capital, Alter Global, Johann Jenson (SVP Product at GoStudent), and other strategic angels also participated in the oversubscribed round.

Speedinvest, a new investor and one of Europe’s biggest startup funds, already has GoStudent, a Vienna-based edtech unicorn, in its portfolio.

“We invested in Maqsad because we see the potential for it to affect the lives of millions of students and disrupt the educational ecosystem,” said Philip Specht, a partner at Speedinvest.

He added, “As team builders, Rooshan and Taha have impressed us, and we think Maqsad is on course to become one of Pakistan’s most prosperous companies.”

Maqsad, a company founded in 2021 by Rooshan Aziz and Taha Ahmed, seeks to provide 100 million Pakistani students with access to education through an end-to-end learning mobile platform that offers instruction, assessment, and problem-solving for grades 9 through 12. The Maqsad app has handled 4 million student inquiries over the past six months, received over a million downloads, and has regularly ranked as Pakistan’s top education app on the Google Play Store.

Pakistan has a sizable potential in education, with annual spending expected to reach $37 billion by 2032. A quarter of this is allocated for after-school academic assistance, which is frequently expensive and challenging to obtain.

“At a significantly reduced cost, Maqsad provides students with an exceptional educational experience,” claimed Taha. Our mission is to address student issues and ensure the achievement of learning objectives, we have gathered feedback from more than 20,000 students and teachers across Pakistan.

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Indus Valley Capital has increased its investment in Maqsad. Upon Why they have done this, Aatif said: “We first invested in Maqsad 18 months ago before they had a product or a staff. The idea Rooshan and Taha had for Pakistani education inspired us. With one of the finest startup teams in Pakistan assembled to create a market-leading product that has benefited over a million students, investing in Maqsad once more is a no-brainer,”

With only one teacher for every 44 pupils, Pakistan also has one of the highest student-teacher ratios worldwide. Maqsad’s “DoubtSolve” technology and interactive testing provide a solution for students lacking access to qualified instructors.

“We recently improved our assessment feature, which allows students to confidently assess themselves, and observed consistent 150%+ month-on-month growth in questions attempted,” Rooshan continued.

The money raised from this funding round, which takes Maqsad’s total amount raised to $4.9 million and establishes the company as Pakistan’s best-funded edtech, will be primarily used to boost the platform’s technology and expand its subject offering. The founders affirmed their commitment to providing personalized learning at scale and actively pursuing multiple exciting AI-based initiatives.

While Maqsad is only a B2C platform right now, its long-term goal is to integrate into the entire school ecosystem. Institutions in the public and private sectors have already expressed interest in working with the business.

Image Credit: Maqsad