How Maqsad’s Mobile Education Can Help More Pakistani Students Learn

Growing up in Pakistan, high-school friends Rooshan Aziz and Taha Ahmed, the founders of edtech start-up Maqsad, were very conscious of their good fortune. Aziz struggled with dyslexia but his parents were able to afford after-school academic support that enabled him to complete his education. Ahmed, meanwhile, benefited from a series of academic scholarships that gave him a headstart in life.

Fast forward to the Covid-19 pandemic, Aziz and Ahmed were both working in London, and watched with horror as Pakistan tried to move to online learning, but found itself unable to scale up a technology platform capable of supporting large numbers of students. The crisis acted as an impetus to launch Maqsad, which is today announcing a $2.8 million funding round as it reaches 1 million users only six months after its launch.

Maqsad aims to make education more accessible to 100 million Pakistani students through a learning platform delivered via a mobile app. The platform offers teaching and testing, and can respond to queries. It seeks to disrupt the country’s out-of-school education sector, which largely consists of expensive tuition services that most families can’t afford.

“Maqsad offers an exceptional after-school learning experience for students at a fraction of the cost of existing alternatives,” Ahmed explains. “Our focus on student problems is at the core of our mission, and we’ve collected feedback from over 20,000 students and teachers across Pakistan to ensure learning outcomes are being achieved.”

Certainly, the company has grown remarkably quickly. Since its launch last year, the Maqsad app has been downloaded more than 1 million times and is consistently ranked as the number one education app in Pakistan on the Google Play Store. The app provides access to high-quality content developed by experienced teachers, but also uses artificial intelligence tools to offer personalised learning.

Aimed initially at students aged 15 to 19 – often preparing for board or university entrance exams – the platform aims to have real impact in a market where student-teacher ratios, at 44:1, are among the highest in the world. Maqsad – the name is the Urdu word for “purpose” – offers a freemium model, enabling students to access a range of features and services at little or no cost. Over time, it plans to offer more content aimed at younger students.

From an investment perspective, the business offers exposure to an education market that is worth $37 billion in Pakistan. While other technology-enabled providers are also targeting the market – including Abwaab and Nearpeer – Maqsad regards its primary competitors as the providers of physical tuition centres. These are unaffordable for many students, it points out, or simply inaccessible for those who do not live in urban locations where such centres are located.

“This can be life-changing for students,” Ahmed adds. “Many students have struggled to get any personalised support with their education because their families can’t afford after-school support or they simply can’t get to tuition centres.”

The company’s backers see an opportunity to drive social impact through a commercially-attractive model. Today’s round, which will bring the total amount of funding raised by the company to $4.9 million, is led by Speedinvest and existing investor Indus Valley Capital. It is also backed by venture capital investors Stellar Capital and Alter Global, as well as a number of business angels.

“We first invested in Maqsad 18 months ago, before they had a product or a team,” says Indus Valley Capital’s founder Aatif Awan. “We were compelled by the vision Rooshan and Taha had for education in Pakistan. Investing again in Maqsad is a no-brainer as we have seen them bring together one of the best start-up teams in Pakistan to build a category-leading product that has helped over a million students.”

Philip Specht, a partner at Speedinvest, one of Europe’s largest seed funds, is also excited by the opportunity to drive social change. “We invested in Maqsad because we see potential for it to touch the lives of millions of students and disrupt the education ecosystem,” he says.