Craydel, a Kenyan edtech startup that compares colleges, course options, and tuition fees, has raised $1 million in a pre-seed round to improve its search and recommendation technology, as well as expand its online resources.
Enza Capital, a private venture fund that invests in early-stage tech startups across Africa, led the investment. Future of Learning Fund, a Kenyan edtech backer; BriteGaze, a South African artificial intelligence fund; Bisk Ventures, a Silicon Valley-based venture capital firm; and Tekton Ventures, a San Francisco-based technology investment firm, are among the other investors in the round.
Kenya-based Chandaria Capital, Nigeria-based LoftyInc Afropreneurs Fund and an array of other angel investors, including founders and top executives of Africa’s leading SaaS, e-commerce and education startups, joined as well.
Manish Sardana, John Nguru, and Shayne Aman Premji, co-founders of Craydel, launched the company earlier this year. It was inspired by the lack of a reliable portal in Africa to help people make college and course selections. This provided the trio with a window of opportunity to create a platform that would solve this problem. The founders of Craydel claim that by providing students with access to a gateway that provides verifiable information on universities, they are restoring power to students.
Craydel offers students a variety of options at every level, including online certificate programs that they can enroll in to test the waters before committing to a certain career path.
The startup has worked with over 90 universities and vocational colleges in Africa and abroad, and now offers a database of over 3,000 higher education programs.
