Egyptian ed-tech marketplace Orcas, which connects students and parents with verified, user-rated and specialised tutors and babysitters, has raised US$500,000 in pre-Series A funding as it looks to scale operations.
Founded in 2014, mobile application Orcas, which last raised funding from Cairo Angels in 2017, leverages technology to create flexible jobs for young people while simultaneously providing school-age students with the best tutors for them.
It has over 20,000 students on the application across Cairo, Alexandria, El Gouna, and the North Coast, and has now raised US$500,000 in a pre-Series A funding round led by Algebra Ventures with participation from NFX Capital.
“Our students, parents, and partners are our primary focus. We will use this investment to develop our product offering and scale our operational capacity with the end goal of optimising user experience for all our stakeholders,” said Amira El Gharib, Orcas’ chief growth officer.
The startup will shortly be launching a new feature, named Discoveries, which are events that allow children to expand their horizons and explore a range of exciting activities.
“Orcas and other tech-enabled tutoring platforms are delivering today on what academic research promised more than 20 years ago,” said Ahmed Elkalla, managing partner at NFX Capital.
“Students who are tutored one-to-one perform significantly better than students who learn via conventional instructional methods. This used to be a luxury very few people could afford but now through tech-enabled platforms like Orcas a much wider group of students can reap the personalised tutoring benefits.”
