Nigerian online teaching platform Klas has raised $1 million in pre-seed funding.
Ingressive Capital led the round, with participation from Techstars, HoaQ, and several angel investors.
Klas enables users to create and sell e-books, courses, and live classes, catering to various subjects from coding and design to finance, art, and languages.
The platform offers essential class components such as scheduling, payments, community features, analytics, and video conferencing.
According to co-founder and CEO Nwachuku in an interview, what Shopify is to online stores is what Klas is to online schooling.
He said “You can think of it the same way you’d think of Shopify. What they are doing for online stores where anyone can set up their stores and sell anything online is what Klas is trying to do for its users by helping them set up online schools and run classes,”
Klas Vs Other platforms
Klas observed gaps in the operations of existing platforms and is taking advantage of filling those gaps to have an edge over the other platforms .
1. Most other virtual learning platforms like Kajabi and Thinkific can be overwhelming for first-time users due to the complexity of their products.
Klas on the other hand provides a simple tool set and user-friendly experience. It is accessible for beginners to effortlessly host engaging online.
2. Other platforms are mostly basically integration toolkits. They work with other tools or apps fully integrated into the platform.
E. G: Zoom or Google meet for classes, Slack for class management, etc
For Klas, all tools and apps , including the virtual classroom, were built from scratch for Klas.
Instead of Zoom or Google Meet; the platform has its own tool called KlasLife,
which doesn’t even use any video API; this KlasLife was built from scratch with a very unique video architecture. It doesn’t use any Video API.
“We’re hyper-focused on a closed ecosystem,” Nwachukwu said.
Nathan Nwachuku and Lekan Adejumo co- founded Klas in 2022.
With a user base of over 5,000 online schools (creators), and 300,000 learners spread over 30 countries, Klas is an African startup serving a global audience.
A larger number of its users are based in Nigeria, so the edtech startup aims to amplify its international presence.
It is focusing on India, its second-largest market and North America .
Speaking of its investment in Klas, MD of Techstars Toronto, Sunil Sharma said “It has been a rewarding experience to have invested in Klas at the earliest stage of the company based on the core abilities of the co-founders Nathan and Lekan and the vision they set for the company,”
Klas’ goal is to power up to 100,000 online schools globally by 2027.
