Wavemaker joins Bangladeshi edtech startup’s $1.3m round

Shikho, a Bangladesh-based edtech firm, announced that it has raised US$1.3 million in its seed round led by early-stage venture capital firm Anchorless Bangladesh and LearnStart, the seed fund of Learn Capital.

Shikho founders Shahir Chowdhury (left) and Zeeshan Zakaria / Photo credit: Shikho

Wavemaker Partners and Ankur Nagpal, founder and CEO of Teachable, also took part in the financing round.

The fresh funds will be used for product development and hiring as the company looks to expand its services amid a rising need for online education due to pandemic-induced lockdowns.

Shikho offers students academic courses that come with resources and tools to help them with “school-leaving” exams. The firm’s application provides access to animated video lessons, a library of in-app questions and solutions, personalized real-time performance tracking, and interactive features for collaboration with peers.

While the total size of the education market in Bangladesh stood at US$14.9 billion in 2020,  the edtech market is likely to be worth US$729 million by 2025.

“Bangladesh has one of the largest allocations of private education expenditure as a percentage of disposable income in the world but lags behind countries like India and Indonesia when it comes to edtech funding,” said Rahat Ahmed, founding partner and CEO at Anchorless Bangladesh.

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Shikho plans to build advanced features for its learning app, including personalization, data analysis, and live quizzes. It will also introduce a new web portal and parent app, which will allow parents and guardians to supervise their child’s learning.

The Dhaka-based firm will also look to expand its offerings across primary, secondary, tertiary, and continuous professional learning. Prior to this round of financing, the edtech firm raised US$275,000 in its pre-seed round from LearnStart and other investors.