A South African edtech startup, GO1, has become Africa’s first edtech startup to achieve a unicorn status, beating expectations in a continent where a growing number of fintechs have gone ahead to achieve the much coveted status. The startup, which is one of the world’s leading on-demand corporate education content centers, has announced a $200 million (R2.9 billion) Series D investment, valuing the firm at more than $1 billion (R15 billion).
SoftBank Vision Fund 2, along with AirTree Ventures, Salesforce Ventures, Blue Cloud Ventures, Larsen Ventures, TEN13, and Tiger Global, led this Series D fundraising round. Endeavor Global Catalyst, M12 (Microsoft’s venture capital fund), Madrona Venture Group, SEEK, and Y Combinator are among the previous investors. The company has raised a total of USD $280 million to far, including prior rounds.
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This new investment will be used to build new partnerships, expand its edtech product offerings, and grow its physical presence globally to support its more than 3.5 million learners at over 1,600 customer organizations worldwide, according to the online learning platform.
“It is extremely humbling to reflect on the journey that we’ve been on as a team. It’s crazy to think how far we’ve come, but our North Star has remained the same which is that we exist to unlock positive potential in people through a love for learning. I think that, ultimately, this raise validates the size of the problem we’re trying to solve and the size of the opportunity to address that problem,” Melvyn Lubega said.
Why The Investors Invested
“When people think about music, they often think of Spotify and access to unlimited music for one subscription. We believe Go1 is the emerging category leader in providing a similar experience for corporate learning. Powered by AI and machine learning, Go1’s platform provides an intuitive experience, and creates an opportunity for individuals to expand their professional development goals and explore the resources to help achieve them,” says Nagraj Kashyap, Managing Partner at SoftBank Investment Advisers.
“With premier education providers such as EdX, Coursera, Skillsoft, and Harvard as part of Go1’s subscription, organisations can curate learning content to fit the needs and interests of its workforce. We are delighted to partner with Melvyn, Andrew and the Go1 team to help advance their vision of reaching one billion learners,” Kashyap added.
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“Currently, every 1.3 seconds somewhere in the world a course is being completed on Go1 — and we know that this is just the beginning. Having been part of Go1’s journey since 2017 when Andrew and Melvyn were selected as Endeavor Entrepreneurs, we have no doubt that not only will they achieve their ambitions, they will also continue to give back to the entrepreneur ecosystem and ensure that future generations have access to opportunities for self-fulfilment and community advancement,” Alison Collier, MD of Endeavor South Africa.
“Melvyn plays a very significant role in contributing to the broader South African entrepreneur community through his involvement in numerous organisations to promote entrepreneurship in Africa. He is also a member of several advisory and oversight bodies, including being on Endeavor South Africa’s board as well as a ministerial advisor on the 4th Industrial Revolution and the Department of Science and Innovation. He is a true example of ‘paying it forward,” Alison added.
| S/N | AFRICAN UNICORNS | SECTOR | YEAR FOUNDED | YEAR BECAME A UNICORN | COUNTRY (PRIMARY MARKET) | FOUNDERS |
|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| 1 | Jumia | Ecommerce | 2012 | 2019 | Nigeria | Jeremy Hodara and Sacha Poignonnec, ex-McKinsey consultants |
| 2 | Interswitch | Financial services | 2002 | 2019 | Nigeria | Mitchell Elegbe |
| 3 | Fawry | Financial services | 2008 | 2020 | Egypt | Ashraf Sabry |
| 4 | Flutterwave | Financial services | 2016 | 2021 | Nigeria | Iyinoluwa Aboyeji, Olugbenga Agboola |
| 5 | OPay | Financial services | 2018 | 2021 | China | Opera |
| 6 | Chipper Cash | Financial services | 2018 | 2021 | Africa, with HQ in San Francisco, California, USA | Ugandan Ham Serunjogi and Ghanaian Maijid Moujaled |
| 7 | GO1 | E-learning | 2015 | 2021 | South Africa | South African Melvyn Lubega and Australian Andrew Barnes |
A Look At What The Startup Does
Go1 is a learning and professional development resource for organizations as well as a major distribution partner for content providers. It was founded in 2015 by South African Melvyn Lubega and Australian Andrew Barnes alongside his high school classmates. Its ease of use and breadth of material have led to widespread adoption on both sides: organizations that now have a single subscription for all workplace training needs, and corporate learning content developers whose ideas now reach a wider audience.
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Go1’s content aggregation method reimagines corporate education by allowing businesses to use learning, training, and certification content from a range of sources through its SaaS platform or by integrating into current learning systems.
With fresh platform content and resources, the new unicorn will focus on growing its team and relationships. Rapid expansion in important countries and government contracts with the Malaysian and Singaporean governments helped the company grow its user base by more than 300 percent year over year. Go1 expects more prospects for growth in the US and Europe as a result of its growing integration with Microsoft Teams, Workday, and SAP, among others. Furthermore, Go1 has yet to capitalize on a chance to serve South African corporations and government agencies.
By this feat, GO1 has not only joined the growing list of African startups that have achieved unicorn status, but has become South Africa’s first to do so. GO1 joined the likes of Jumia, Fawry, Flutterwave, Opay and Chipper Cash.
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“Across the continent, over the last few years there has been greater interest and greater valuations being placed on businesses either founded by African entrepreneurs or being built on the continent. That is part of the groundswell that highlights how backing African entrepreneurs as an investor and attracting capital to the ecosystem is actually a very compelling value proposition. And, at the same time, it tells African entrepreneurs that they can achieve the impact they want to have on the world, regardless of their starting point,” Lubega said.
African unicorn GO1 African unicorn GO1
Charles Rapulu Udoh
Charles Rapulu Udoh is a Lagos-based lawyer who has advised startups across Africa on issues such as startup funding (Venture Capital, Debt financing, private equity, angel investing etc), taxation, strategies, etc. He also has special focus on the protection of business or brands’ intellectual property rights ( such as trademark, patent or design) across Africa and other foreign jurisdictions.
He is well versed on issues of ESG (sustainability), media and entertainment law, corporate finance and governance.
He is also an award-winning writer