Pakistani edtech startup ‘Maqsad’ gets $2.1 million pre-seed to make education more accessible

In recent news, a Pakistani ed-tech startup called ‘Maqsad’ announced its $2.1 million pre-seed round which will be used to enhance the company’s content platform growth and further invest in research and development.

The startup was founded by Taha Ahmed and Rooshan Aziz who left their jobs in strategy consulting and investment banking in London to work on Maqsad which focused on making education more accessible to more than 100 million Pakistani students.

The pre-seed round was led by Indus Valley Capital, with participation from Alter Global, Fatima Gobi Ventures, and several angel investors from Pakistan, the Middle East, and Europe.

Maqsad which means ‘purpose’ in Urdu provides a one-stop-shop for after-school academic content in both English and Urdu. The content also includes quizzes and other gamified features that couple together to offer a personalized education to individuals. This is also adaptive testing that alters a question’s level of difficulty which overall depends on the users’ responses.

According to Aziz:
“We believe everyone has a purpose. Maqsad’s mission is to enable Pakistani students to realize this purpose; whether you are a student from an urban centre, such as Lahore, or from a remote village in Sindh: Maqsad believes in equal opportunity for all.”

“We are building a mobile-first platform, given that 95% of broadband users in Pakistan are via mobile. Most other platforms are not mobile optimized.”

Taha Ahmed further added:
“It’s about more than just getting students to pass their exams. We want to start a revolution in the way Pakistani students learn, moving beyond rote memorization to a place of real comprehension.”

Ever since the COVID-19 pandemic came around, it has totally changed the education system which has made the need for edtech more prominent. Moreover, it is to be noted that the education market size in Pakistan is estimated at $12 billion and will further increase. Hence, edtech based startups have risen to make online education more accessible for a wider population and also cash in the opportunity.

In regards to the current education issues, in dues Valley Captial, Aatif Awan stated the following:
“Maqsad founders’ deep understanding of the problem, unique approach to solving it, and passion for impact persuaded us quickly.”

This just goes to show how valuable will the edtech market be in the next 10 years.