Publish : 16 Jan 2022, 06:22 PMUpdate : 16 Jan 2022, 07:55 PM
10 Minute School has raised $2 million in seed funding from Surge, Sequoia Capital India’s rapid scale-up program.
This makes it the first EdTech company in Bangladesh to secure funding from Surge.
“In the past six to seven years, I was solely focused on developing 10 Minute School, and although I had so many ideas that I wanted to implement, we did not have enough funding for that,” Ayman Sadiq, the founder and CEO of 10 Minute School, told Dhaka Tribune.
Implementation of several such ideas had to be stopped mid-way, he further said, adding: “So, we spent most of the last year trying to raise funds to fulfil those objectives.”
The tech start-up plans to utilize these funds to invest in product, technology, and talent acquisition.
Sadiq wants to use the seed funding to develop 3D content, as well as enable students to use the app with low bandwidth in a bid to reduce dependence on third-party apps like Facebook or YouTube.
The platform is currently focused on recruiting more teachers, talents, and content creators, and hopes to create studios for these recruits.
10 Minute School also wants a science lab to record experiments, and also set up a research and development lab for working on new products, said the EdTech founder.
The start-up also has plans to design separate sets for each course and create “movie-quality tutorials”.
Additionally, the platform is attempting to create an app for learning that uses speech processing to help people learn and practice English. It also plans to create industry-specific courses to create skilled manpower in every district.
Nirjhor Rahman, CEO of Bangladesh Angel Network (BAN), says it is a very interesting time to get involved with and invest in startups in Bangladesh.
“Startups are generating and growing revenues, creating strong partnerships with each other and the corporate sector, and garnering pre-seed angel-stage investments much faster and easier than before,” he added.
But, according to Rahman, some of the lingering challenges include a lack of liquidity, including follow-on funds, a growing need for more product development and management expertise, as well as creating a compelling story and proposition for big-ticket investors, including foreign angels and venture capitalists, “who can literally invest their capital anywhere”.
Speaking about neighbouring markets such as India and Pakistan, he said there is a flourishing industry of domestic venture capital, particularly in the early stages within the fundraising value chain, often affiliated with local corporates and family offices.
“Although more and more Bangladeshi corporations and financial institutions are looking at startups for potential investment, they are still cutting relatively small — $250,000-$500,000 — cheques, or just monitoring the companies,” he explained.
“If we can create more domestic liquidity, and through access to that liquidity more and more startups in Bangladesh can start scaling and get to Series A, B, and C, more foreign investors will start looking at Bangladeshi startups, because their minimum checks are much larger and range in the millions of dollars,” Rahman further said.
How Surge’s fundings work
In 2019, Sequoia Capital India launched Surge, an early-stage company building program for startups in India and Southeast Asia, to help founders make the right design choices and to lay the foundations for enduring companies that will continue to make an impact for generations to come.
Surge combines $1 million to $2 million of seed capital with company-building workshops, global immersion trips, and support from a community of exceptional founders to develop start-ups.
The curriculum, which spans a 16-week period, has a strong focus on the human aspect of the founder's journey.
“We cover the psychology of entrepreneurship and spend time on personal leadership and effectiveness, in addition to sessions on defining culture and creating world-class teams. We also address core topics like customer acquisition, business models and moats, pricing and monetization, and more,” states its official website.
10 Minute School raises $2m seed funding
The tech start-up plans to utilize these funds to invest in product, technology, and talent acquisition
10 Minute School has raised $2 million in seed funding from Surge, Sequoia Capital India’s rapid scale-up program.
This makes it the first EdTech company in Bangladesh to secure funding from Surge.
“In the past six to seven years, I was solely focused on developing 10 Minute School, and although I had so many ideas that I wanted to implement, we did not have enough funding for that,” Ayman Sadiq, the founder and CEO of 10 Minute School, told Dhaka Tribune.
Implementation of several such ideas had to be stopped mid-way, he further said, adding: “So, we spent most of the last year trying to raise funds to fulfil those objectives.”
The tech start-up plans to utilize these funds to invest in product, technology, and talent acquisition.
Sadiq wants to use the seed funding to develop 3D content, as well as enable students to use the app with low bandwidth in a bid to reduce dependence on third-party apps like Facebook or YouTube.
The platform is currently focused on recruiting more teachers, talents, and content creators, and hopes to create studios for these recruits.
10 Minute School also wants a science lab to record experiments, and also set up a research and development lab for working on new products, said the EdTech founder.
The start-up also has plans to design separate sets for each course and create “movie-quality tutorials”.
Additionally, the platform is attempting to create an app for learning that uses speech processing to help people learn and practice English. It also plans to create industry-specific courses to create skilled manpower in every district.
Nirjhor Rahman, CEO of Bangladesh Angel Network (BAN), says it is a very interesting time to get involved with and invest in startups in Bangladesh.
“Startups are generating and growing revenues, creating strong partnerships with each other and the corporate sector, and garnering pre-seed angel-stage investments much faster and easier than before,” he added.
But, according to Rahman, some of the lingering challenges include a lack of liquidity, including follow-on funds, a growing need for more product development and management expertise, as well as creating a compelling story and proposition for big-ticket investors, including foreign angels and venture capitalists, “who can literally invest their capital anywhere”.
Speaking about neighbouring markets such as India and Pakistan, he said there is a flourishing industry of domestic venture capital, particularly in the early stages within the fundraising value chain, often affiliated with local corporates and family offices.
“Although more and more Bangladeshi corporations and financial institutions are looking at startups for potential investment, they are still cutting relatively small — $250,000-$500,000 — cheques, or just monitoring the companies,” he explained.
“If we can create more domestic liquidity, and through access to that liquidity more and more startups in Bangladesh can start scaling and get to Series A, B, and C, more foreign investors will start looking at Bangladeshi startups, because their minimum checks are much larger and range in the millions of dollars,” Rahman further said.
How Surge’s fundings work
In 2019, Sequoia Capital India launched Surge, an early-stage company building program for startups in India and Southeast Asia, to help founders make the right design choices and to lay the foundations for enduring companies that will continue to make an impact for generations to come.
Surge combines $1 million to $2 million of seed capital with company-building workshops, global immersion trips, and support from a community of exceptional founders to develop start-ups.
The curriculum, which spans a 16-week period, has a strong focus on the human aspect of the founder's journey.
“We cover the psychology of entrepreneurship and spend time on personal leadership and effectiveness, in addition to sessions on defining culture and creating world-class teams. We also address core topics like customer acquisition, business models and moats, pricing and monetization, and more,” states its official website.
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