The wave of investment in Egyptian startups this year has been quite remarkable. Knowledge Officer, a London-based edtech startup founded by two Egyptians; Ahmed El-Sharkasy and Ahmed Eshra is the latest to join the train, winning $500,000 (over £400,000) in grant from Innovate UK, United Kingdom’s innovation agency.
Here Is The Deal
- The grant called ‘Smart’ according to Innovate UK’s website is for ‘best game-changing or disruptive ideas (from any area of technology) with a view to commercialization.’
Ahmed El-Sharkasy, co-founder and CEO of Knowledge Officer, commenting on the occasion, said:
“The grant will help us scale our ML team in London and support our ambition to help millions of job seekers find the right and proven path to pursue their dream career goals at an affordable price. It’s a huge under-served market and we are here to serve the unserved”
- This is a significant amount of money, especially considering the fact that Knowledge Officer’s seed round that it raised in March last year was ~$750,000 (£600,000).
- Knowledge Officer in a statement said that they will receive the money after presenting their research and results later this year, to take their platform to the next level.
Why Knowledge Officer Won The Grant
Although Innovate UK says the grant is for the ‘best game-changing or disruptive ideas (from any area of technology) with a view to commercialization,’ Knowledge Officer in a statement noted the grant was awarded based on the significance of the problem Knowledge Officer is working to solve — building the best path-to-employment platform and promoting data-driven learning at scale.
‘‘The Smart grant is awarded to game-changing ideas from business with strong evidence of impact. Knowledge Officer was one of just a few startups selected for the fund from 500 applications,” Knowledge Officer noted in the statement.
It also went ahead to state that winning the grant was further validation of both the problem the startup was looking to solve as well as the approach that it is relying on to execute the problem.
Read Also: This Is How The Egyptian Government Is Supporting Egypt ’s Startup Ecosystem
What Knowledge Officer Does
Knowledge Officer which also has an office in Alexandria (Egypt), helps users transition into new careers by analyzing their current skills against their dream career and creating a customized learning path to help them learn the skills needed for the new career of their choice. The six areas that it currently covers include founder, product manager, growth manager, machine learning engineer, marketing specialist, and customer success.
Users are offered curated learning material from around the web that comes with challenges and the option to track one’s progress. The users are required to answer different questions at every stage to advance to the next one and can even compete with their friends on Knowledge Officer.
The platform at different points throughout a user’s learning journey also notifies them when their recently acquired skills match with the relevant jobs on different recruitment platforms.
“In our journey to create the shortest and most efficient path to employment, think [of Knowledge Officer as] Google Maps for learning. We wanted to change the way people perceive learning and transform the overall experience to be based on data and ML. Imagine the impact of a concrete route to take you from your current skill set (Point A) and a transformed, aspirational state (Point B), where you are being offered your dream job.”
Knowledge Officer, according to the statement, has more than 100,000 users now with a few thousand active users on a weekly basis. The startup that offers a premium subscription with extra learning tools to both individuals and businesses aims to reach a stable MRR by the end of 2019 from both B2C and B2B revenue streams.
Charles Rapulu Udoh
Charles Rapulu Udoh is a Lagos-based Lawyer with special focus on Business Law, Intellectual Property Rights, Entertainment and Technology Law. He is also an award-winning writer. Working for notable organizations so far has exposed him to some of industry best practices in business, finance strategies, law, dispute resolution, and data analytics both in Nigeria and across the world