Shikho, a Bangladeshi education technology startup that provides affordable digital resources and tools in academic courses, has raised $4 million in a seed round led by Wavemaker Partners.
The round was also backed by other investors like LearnStart, Anchorless Bangladesh, Vibe Capital, DSG Consumer Partners, Black Kite Capital, Ratio Ventures, and Demand Curve founder Julian Shapiro.
With the recent fundraise, the company plans to provide courses for classes 6, 7, and 8 as well as enhance its offerings for vocational and language skills building.
Founded in 2019 by Shahir Chowdhury and Zeeshan Zakaria, Shikho is on a mission to revolutionize the way Bangladeshi students learn today and democratize access to a high-quality education. The platform allows students to learn at their own pace, test themselves, and get ahead with its expert teachers anytime and anywhere. It offers students with academic courses that include affordable digital resources and tools to help students succeed in national board exams.
Shikho’s learning app also includes features such as in-app testing, automated analysis and reporting of results, a recommendation engine that prompts students to watch videos based on their testing performance, and a variety of gamification features that allow students to earn points and badges as they progress through their syllabus. The startup aspires to improve educational outcomes for students by gamifying the learning experience.
Speaking about the company, Co-founder of Shikho, Shahir Chowdhury, said in a statement,
“Since August 2021, the team has grown from 60- to over 300-strong spread across four different locations (in Bangladesh), and we plan to continue strengthening several departments.”
Shikho claims to have nearly 350,000 users across 64 districts of Bangladesh using its mobile platform, which launched in November 2020.
Earlier this year, Shikho acquired Mainly Coding, a platform that focuses on the practical aspects of learning how to code, in an all-cash deal. The company partnered with India’s largest teaching platform, Teachmint to bring live class technology to Bangladesh in August 2021.
Last year in July, Shikho had raised $1.3 million in its seed funding round led by New York-based early-stage venture capital firm Anchorless Bangladesh and LearnStart, the seed fund of Learn Capital.
