Startups bag Sh154m financing to boost education

Some of the cohort 3 beneficiaries. [Courtesy] Twelve Kenyan startups are set to receive up to $1.2 million (Sh154 million) as part of a programme to foster access to education technology. Each of the 12, who are part of the third Cohort of the Mastercard Foundation EdTech Fellowship run in partnership with iHUb, is set to receive Sh12.9 million that will go into the financing and development of their startup. The fellowship provides growth-stage companies with business development and financial support, in addition to the latest insights into the science of learning to help them scale their products to drive inclusive access to education using technology. Research shows that traditionally education technology has tended to be under-funded as a startup area and the financing aims to address this. Data from the Digital Education Council shows that financing for education technology fell more than 90 per cent between 2021 and 2024, underlining the stark need in the sector for financing and driving the focus for the stakeholders. "Why this programme matters is that it is really creating an opportunity for young people, creating more learning opportunities for young people, and what better way to do that that than using technology," said Eliud Chemweno, head of EdTech ecosystem at Mastercard Foundation. For the first time in the programme, seven female founders are among the 12 innovators selected, meaning that 75 per cent of funding is going to female-owned startups. According Nissi Madu, the managing partner at iHub, finding the most deserving women was no easy feat. "If you look at the larger tech ecosystem, we often talk about the fact that female founders don't get a lot of support or don't get a lot of capital even though they're building amazing businesses," she said. Group Photo of the Beneficiairies of the MasterCard cohort 3 with project stakeholders. [Courtesy] "And so for us we're very intentional about supporting these women and not just supporting those who are building maybe nice solutions, we really did do the hard work to find women who are building amazing businesses." Rhoda King'ori, COO and co-founder of Zydii, one of the startups selected, it is not easy being female in a male-dominated arena, and their selection as part of the new cohort is a major boost for the startup. "One of the things we have learned to do because we are a women-led edtech startup is not to be focused on the negative because statistically you'd think that you can never make it. 'We've gotten funding before. We have scaled, we have grown, and we're proving that it's actually possible," she said. "So, we actually say that, you know what? The statistics may say one thing, but programmes like this make it possible for us to get in and get to the next level." Julius Irungu is the founder and CEO of E-soma solutions, one of the beneficiaries of the programme's second cohort selected in 2024. The company produces material that promotes foundational learning in literacy and numeracy. "We picked up quite a lot during the six-month fellowship. We worked with team to integrate learning science, so its speaks to the needs of the learners and is not just a flashy tech product," he said. Collectively, the first two cohorts of the programme have reached over 470,341 new learners, according to data from the partners. The programme has also strengthened institutional learning and management infrastructure, recruiting 1,537 new schools to innovative learning platforms. Among the beneficiaries of the 2025 third cohort include M-Lugha Technologies, an online and offline multilingual, multicultural and interactive mobile App that helps young, adult and out of school youth acquire basic literacy and numeracy by using their respective indigenous language; Zydii a Business-to-Business SAAS workforce skilling solution providing Tiktok style.

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