Egyptian ed-tech startup OTO Courses has raised US$400,000 in cash and in-kind services from EdVentures to further develop its product to reach more users.
Founded in 2015 by Ahmed Badr and Tarek Nour El-Din, OTO Courses has developed an online learning platform that offers general and specialised English language courses for individuals or businesses.
Teachers are carefully selected and trained, with the startup aiming to bridge the gap between traditional education and what the labour market needs by making quality education available to anyone, anywhere, at any time. Learners have the flexibility to choose session dates that suit them, with the opportunity to communicate directly with lecturers.
OTO has so far delivered 350,000 hours of English lessons online to more than 15,000 learners, and has more than 150 teachers and lecturers. It is now looking to expand its offering, and as such has taken on board more funding to add to the six-figure round it secured last year. The US$400,000 in cash and in-kind services comes from corporate VC firm EdVentures, launched in 2017 by Nahdet Misr Publishing House to support and invest in startups specialising in education, culture and innovative learning solutions.
The investment will be used to develop OTO’s platform and further expand its services to include a larger segment of users, especially middle and secondary school students, by delivering educational programmes in a variety of other areas or subjects.
“We will continue offering high quality services at the most affordable rates to our users so all segments can benefit from our platform,” said Badr, co-founder and chief commercial officer (CCO) of OTO.
Dalia Ibrahim, chief executive officer (CEO) and founder of EdVentures, said OTO had proven its success over the years.
“Its founders have succeeded in regularly upgrading the platform in order to improve the effectiveness of its services. Our investment comes today to assist OTO in extending the provision of high-quality distance learning services to thousands of learners,” she said.
