ⓘ Featured image credits: Abwaab

Jordan-based Abwaab, an edtech startup has reportedly raised $2.4 million in a Pre-Seed round led by Adam Tech Ventures with participation from Endure Capital, Equitrust, Innovative Startups SMEs Fund (ISSF – a World Bank-backed fund), a London-based investment fund, a number of former and current executives from Uber and Netflix, and more.

The startup is aiming to utilise the funds for hiring across its teams, develop its product and expand across the whole MENA region.

The edtech startup was founded in September 2019 by Hamdi Tabbaa, former general manager of Uber for GCC & Levant, and Hussein Alsarabi, former director of technology & product development at Mawdoo3.

The startup aims to improve the out-of-school learning experience for Arabic-speaking youth by providing high-quality education accessible irrespective of the socioeconomic background.

Abwaab’s platform was launched last month – providing a freemium subscription model offering self-paced learning to students. The platform until now has created over 1000 videos related to STEM subjects tailored for Jordanian market. The videos inculcate concept-based video lessons taught by highly experienced teachers along with assessments and performance tracking features.

Commenting over the investment round and sharing the chief cognition behind starting Abwaab, Tabbaa in a statement said,

“There is a clear lack of online educational resources for young people in MENA who are in their prime learning age (0-24) despite the fact that they currently make up half of the region’s population and rank one of the lowest on academic performance. By providing a high-quality, easily-accessible and fun learning experience, we believe that our product will have a powerful impact on generations to come,”

Alsarabi shared that the company is planning to leverage AI to offer personalised learning to every student on the platform,

“Not only are we planning on tailoring the learning experience on the country level, but also on the individual level. We aim to harness the power of AI to provide each and every student a unique and personalized learning journey. I believe that AI will be an instrumental driver of change in edtech and we want to be at the forefront of this,”

Dina Shawar, the CEO of Adam Tech Ventures taking the example of India’s edtech unicorn Byju’s affirmed her idea of investing in Abwaab by saying,

“We see huge potential in Abwaab and are very excited to be supporting its mission. We can clearly see the impact Byju’s is having on the Indian market and strongly believe that Abwaab will have a similar effect in MENA,”