Dami Oguntunde, co-founder and CEO of Hardé Business School, said African edtech startups require patient capital and impact-focused financing rather than the rapid-growth funding model commonly applied to fintech companies.
Speaking at the BRINT EdTech Summit 2.0 in Lagos, Oguntunde said education companies should not be assessed solely by their ability to generate immediate revenue. He described education as a “patient sector” that requires investors willing to support companies while they develop products, demonstrate learning outcomes and build viable revenue models.
Other founders at the summit agreed that education businesses often require more time to generate returns because they serve learners with limited spending power and operate in a sector where results may take months or years to become visible. They warned that applying fintech-style expectations to edtech companies could leave startups chasing user numbers without building sustainable businesses.
The discussion took place during a panel titled Scaling African EdTech Beyond Borders. It featured Ruby Igwe, Regional Director at ALX Africa; Boye Oshinaga, founder of Gradely; Kelechi Uchenna, co-founder and CEO of Nigenius; and Dami Oguntunde.
Oguntunde cited Hardé Business School’s experience offering micro-courses to young people entering the workforce. According to him, the platform recorded about 30,000 enrolments within one month. However, many of the learners did not have enough disposable income to pay for the courses.
The enrolment figures showed that there was demand for the product, but the company could not generate the revenue normally expected by venture capital investors. This gap between demand and the ability to pay, he said, is one of the reasons edtech startups require a different funding approach.
“There has to be very high-level institutional thinking that stimulates the growth of edtech solutions without placing too much of an instant burden for revenue generation,” Oguntunde said.
He called on governments, development organisations and global foundations to provide grants and impact-focused capital to education companies.
Oguntunde pointed to the Mastercard Foundation EdTech Fellowship as an example of a programme that evaluates companies based on their potential impact and the education problems they are addressing. He said such programmes could help startups develop long-term solutions without forcing them to prioritise short-term revenue ahead of learning outcomes.
Beyond the funding problem
Boye Oshinaga said the funding challenge is also connected to how African edtech founders explain the size of their markets to investors. He said founders must show that they are building for a market larger than one country and present a clear path to recurring revenue.
“The market is not one country; it is an entire continent,” he said.
According to him, investors want to see that customers are returning, payments are increasing, and the business is growing consistently. Large numbers of registrations and downloads may attract attention, but they are less useful when startups cannot convert them into paying customers.
Oshinaga said African edtech companies must therefore develop a stronger narrative around the continental education market while also demonstrating how their products will generate sustainable revenue.
The founders also identified cross-border payments, regulation and trust as barriers to expansion.
An edtech company entering a new African country may need to convince learners and institutions to trust an unfamiliar platform while adapting to different payment systems and regulatory requirements. Local partnerships could help companies overcome some of these challenges by providing market knowledge, distribution and access to customers.
Partnerships, local products and African data
Oguntunde said partnerships with governments, corporations and large institutions could give edtech companies access to significantly larger groups of learners. While business-to-consumer operations allow companies to engage directly with individual users, institutional partnerships can improve credibility, distribution and revenue. He said a partnership with a telecommunications company, for example, could expose an education platform to millions of subscribers more quickly than years of direct customer acquisition.
However, he acknowledged that institutional partnerships often involve long negotiations and delayed payment cycles.
For Kelechi Uchenna, partnerships should be treated as clear commercial exchanges rather than vague agreements between companies.
He said companies do not have to work together simply because they operate in the same industry, particularly when they offer similar products to the same customers. According to him, a school-financing company could introduce Nigenius to schools that require robotics education, while Nigenius could connect the finance provider to institutions already using its services.
“It is a give and take,” Uchenna said.
He also dismissed concerns that partnerships with larger international platforms would automatically weaken African startups or reduce them to minor features within another company’s product. Uchenna said he would accept having Nigenius integrated into a larger platform if the partnership produced active users, transactions and revenue.
“A partnership is a partnership. It is not an acquisition,” he said, adding that the company would continue operating its own products and distribution channels.
The discussion also highlighted the need for edtech companies to design around Africa’s infrastructure and affordability limitations.
Nigenius, for example, began RoboLearn with a physical robotics workbook connected to additional digital materials through QR codes. The company also uses locally sourced components for its robotics kits to reduce costs. The model allows learners to begin with a physical product and access more content when an internet-enabled device is available, rather than making constant connectivity a requirement. Uchenna said companies must find a balance between quality and access. A sophisticated learning platform will have limited impact if its intended users cannot afford the data, devices or subscriptions required to use it.
Ruby Igwe also called on African edtech companies to ensure that artificial intelligence tools used in education are trained with local languages, curricula and classroom experiences. She said uploading curriculum documents into an AI platform may not be enough. The systems should also learn from how experienced African teachers explain concepts, assess students and respond to learning difficulties.
The founders said a combination of patient capital, institutional partnerships, affordable products and locally trained AI would be necessary for African edtech companies to expand beyond their home markets.
Also read: Nigerian edtech platform aptLearn shuts down after 4 years, to focus on strategic reset and AI pivot
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