Founded by Dacod Magagula and Tao Boyle in August 2020, FoondaMate has built a chat-based, AI-powered learning bot that helps students get fast, easy and safe access to study materials and help via open chat platforms such as WhatsApp and Facebook Messenger.<\/p>\n
The bot is used by over 400,000 students, speaking 11 languages across 30 countries, and has more than doubled its user base in six months thanks to viral growth. FoondaMate is now targeting further growth after securing a US$2 million seed round.<\/p>\n
The round was led by LocalGlobe with participation from Emerge Education, FirstCheck Africa, LoftyInc, Future Africa, Luno co-founder Marcus Swanepoel and Justworks co-founder Isaac Oates. FoondaMate will use the investment to continue growing its team, with a particular focus on engineering and product, while expanding into more regions. The first of these regions are Indonesia, where FoondaMate is currently in beta, Mexico, Nigeria, Pakistan, India and Brazil.<\/p>\n
\u201cAt FoondaMate, we believe talent is equally distributed yet opportunities are not. There are often competing factors that contribute to educational inequality \u2013 not just in Africa, but across the world \u2013 and our technology is helping to universally address these. It\u2019s humbling to think so many learners trust us to support their desire to learn and it\u2019s a responsibility we take incredibly seriously. We\u2019re thrilled to have investors that share our passion and who believe in the power of revolutionising how and where students learn,\u201d said Magagula.<\/p>\n
Ziv Reichert, partner at LocalGlobe, said FoondaMate\u2019s viral growth strongly reflected how well the product resonates with learners, and spoke volumes to its team\u2019s deep understanding of its users\u2019 needs.<\/p>\n
\u201cHaving initially launched with a mission to transform how students across Africa study, FoondaMate has evolved into a tool that is now used and loved by learners from a range of backgrounds, with varying needs and learning styles, from all across the world. We believe that it takes immense empathy for a problem and a real long-term view to build a product of this kind. With more than 400,000 users, it\u2019s fair to say that Dacod and Tao are just getting started and we\u2019re delighted to be supporting them on their journey,\u201d he said.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"
South African ed-tech startup FoondaMate has raised US$2 million in seed funding as it aims to close global education inequality gaps using its AI-powered learning platform.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":12963,"featured_media":9059,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[16,21],"tags":[7,26,22],"class_list":{"0":"post-9062","1":"post","2":"type-post","3":"status-publish","4":"format-standard","5":"has-post-thumbnail","7":"category-news","8":"category-technology","9":"tag-apie-project","10":"tag-news","11":"tag-technology"},"yoast_head":"\n