Studeo, the tutoring app tailored to students getting accustomed to remote learning as a result of the pandemic, is today announcing receiving a $1.2M investment from VCs on both sides of the Atlantic. The investors, including UK early-stage investor Jenson Funding Partners alongside US VC firm Sequoia, will team up to assist Studeo with hands-on support to successfully scale its operations.
The London-based startup will also as a part of this deal join Sequoia’s accelerator programme in Europe for seed-stage companies. As part of the 17 seed-stage companies selected, Studeo will go through an eight-week programme learning the basics of company building from other founders and operators. The startup is also set to receive further backing from Sequoia.
Applications for the first European aspirants closed on April 8th, with the programme having officially commenced and led by Sequoia partner Luciana Lixandru. The first assembly of US startups for the programme will be selected later this year.
“We’ve seen an incredible amount of innovation take place in direct response to the pandemic, especially where education is concerned. We’re proud to get behind Nicolas, Antonin and the Studeo team as they set out to democratise tutoring and make a positive societal impact,” stated Jeffrey Faustin, the CIO and partner at Jenson Funding Partners.
Recreating the tutoring experience
Traditional tutoring has long been plagued by an accessibility gap, both in terms of high-cost barriers and its physical location. Extra studies have remained out of reach for lower-income households as a result of this. Studeo tackles this, leveraging the familiarity pupils now have with remote learning to provide a reimagined tutoring experience in an affordable, digital format that’s accessible at any time. Users can pick tutors based on their credentials, which are provided within the platform.
Whereas some studies have noted a disconnect with home learners, owing to just 34% of UK students claiming to have felt motivated to learn remotely, Studeo has factored this into its offering with hopes of improving the statistic. To improve student engagement, the platform has summarised subjects into short videos (up to five minutes long). Each and every lesson also comes with in-video exercises and quizzes included.
The edtech presently focuses on maths but intends to use the investment to support its expansion into sciences, with physics, chemistry, biology and computer science all in the pipeline. Since its founding in 2020 by Nicolas Levandowsky, Hatim Siyawala & Antonin De Laever, Studeo has grown to now set its sight on emerging markets, with the intention to go beyond its current UK and France markets as its product develops to better meet the needs of its growing user base.
Nicolas Levandowsky, Studeo co-founder and CEO further elaborated, “There’s a serious gap in the quality of education that is available to students. Tutoring costs between £50 and £150 per session, so a huge portion of the population simply can’t afford tutors in the traditional format. This is why we’ve created an affordable model with a digital design. Having the full support of Jenson, and now joining the Sequoia accelerator, we’re excited about the road ahead.”
