Speedinvest leads $2.8M seed round for Maqsad, Pakistan’s education technology provider

The Vienna-based VC fund Speedinvest led a $2.8 million round for Maqsad, the Karachi-based startup that provides an end-to-end learning platform for online teaching and testing. The investment will help Maqsad to grow its edtech platform and solve a major challenge in the country’s education system, Bloomberg reports. 

• Founded in 2021 by Taha Ahmed and Rooshan Aziz, Maqsad develops the query-solving technology DoubtSolve that enables students lacking access to quality instructors to both self-evaluate and get questions answered instantly. Since launching, the startup has answered more than 4 million student queries and has been downloaded over 1 million times.
• Maqsad claims that its mobile-only service targets students in grades nine to twelve and offers cheaper rates than brick-and-mortar tutoring companies. Maqsad competes with local startups like Edkasa, and Middle Eastern edtech platforms Noon and Abwaab, which have expanded into Pakistan, in recent years. 
• The fresh round was led by Speedinvest, one of Europe’s largest seed funds, and included participation from returning investor Indus Valley Capital, Stellar Capital, Alter Global, Johann Jenson, and other strategic angels. Among recent participation of Speedinvest is €10 million round for Sunhero, the provider of solar panels. 
• Maqsad plans to use the funding to expand the subject offerings and to supercharge the platform. Additionally, Maqsad’s long-term vision is to embed itself across the education ecosystem of Pakistan. A quarter of this goes towards after-school academic support.