To expand services, $400k funding secured by Egyptian ed-tech startup OTO Courses

OTO Courses, an Egyptian ed-tech firm, has received US$400,000 in cash and in-kind services from EdVentures to help it enhance its product and expand its user base.

OTO Courses, founded in 2015 by Ahmed Badr and Tarek Nour El-Din, is an online learning platform that provides general and specialised English language courses to individuals and organisations.

Teachers are carefully chosen and taught, with the goal of bridging the gap between conventional education and what the labour market requires by making excellent education accessible to anybody, anywhere, at any time. Learners have the freedom to set their own session dates and have direct access to professors.

OTO has provided more than 15,000 students with 350,000 hours of online English classes and employs over 150 teachers and lecturers. It’s now aiming to extend its services, so it’s raised extra money to supplement the six-figure round it got last year. EdVentures, a corporate venture capital organisation founded by Nahdet Misr Publishing House in 2017 to help and invest in startups focused on education, culture, and creative learning solutions has contributed US $400,000 in cash and in-kind services.

The funds will be utilised to expand OTO’s platform and services to a wider range of customers, particularly middle and secondary school students, by offering educational programmes in a number of different areas or disciplines.

“We will continue offering high-quality services at the most affordable rates to our users so all segments can benefit from our platform,” said Badr, co-founder and chief commercial officer (CCO) of OTO.

OTO had demonstrated its success throughout the years, according to Dalia Ibrahim, CEO, and founder of EdVentures.

“Its founders have succeeded in regularly upgrading the platform in order to improve the effectiveness of its services. Our investment comes today to assist OTO in extending the provision of high-quality distance learning services to thousands of learners,” she said.