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Tuesday, 16 November 2021

Career 180 lands investment from EdVentures + Tyro to acquire Nafham in share swap

Edtech startup Career 180 scored a USD 200k investment from EdVentures to develop a new employment platform, the VC firm said in a press release (pdf). The site would be merged with freelance job site Freelance Yard to create a platform that provides employment services to young people across a range of industries.

This marks the second investment by Nahdet Misr Publishing’s VC arm in the startup, bringing its total investments to date to USD 300k. EdVentures invested an initial USD 100k in the business back in 2019.

The new platform is set to launch in two months, and will involve providing job seekers with qualifications through live courses that provide them with badges upon completion, and supporting them through training throughout their application process, co-founder Shorouk Alaa El Din told Enterprise. The startup plans to provide training to up to 1 mn people, and connect 300k users with jobs, according to the press release.

A platform for freelancers: The merger with Freelance Yard, which was already a partner working in collaboration with Career 180, will allow the startup to venture into freelance work and contracting, rather than full-time gigs alone, explained Shorouk. Legal proceedings for the merger are currently underway, she confirmed.

What does Career 180 do? The online platform allows users to connect with career experts in virtual one-to-one sessions, and provides them with resources like career counselling videos to help equip them with skills for the job market. The startup also hosts various workshops, training programs, and the annual Egypt Career Summit.

This marks EdVentures’ fourth investment this year, by our count. Last week, the company announced it had invested USD 400k in OTO Courses. Earlier in the year, it made a USD 160k investment in edtech platform iSchool, and another a six-figure investment in book summary platform Akhdar. We can expect at least one more edtech investment round from the investor before the end of the year, EdVentures’ General Manager Maged Harby told us, saying the average ticket size for remaining investments will range between USD 100k-300k.

ALSO IN EDTECH- Tyro is acquiring crowdsourced educational content platform Nafham, the company announced in a press release (pdf). The transaction will be executed by share swap and will see Tyro’s leadership take over Nafham’s management and operations. Tyro has already secured funding from Flat6Labs and NXL Partners for the new entity, it said without disclosing further details.

What are these two platforms? Tyro connects students and instructors in one-to-one and group sessions and boasts 50k paid sessions since 2017, while Nafham, which has 6 mn users annually, offers recorded educational video content covering national school curriculums in Egypt, Kuwait, Syria, Saudi Arabia, the UAE, and Algeria.

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