Rabat – Morocco’s private tutoring marketplace Smartprof recently raised $110,000 in pre-seed funding from UM6P Ventures, Plug and Play, and business angels.
In an interview with Morocco World News, Smartprof co-founder Mustapha Faiz stated that the startup, whose valuation remains undisclosed, aims to use the funding to expand its presence in Morocco and West Africa.
“Smartprof is currently present in two main regions: Grand Casablanca and Rabat and we are looking to expand in other major Moroccan cities: Agadir, Marrakech, Dakhla, Tangier, Oujda, Meknes,” Faiz explained.
In addition to increasing its share in the Moroccan market, Smartprof plans to “start expanding in other African countries in the upcoming months,” the co-founder said. “Our ambition is to become a one-stop shop platform for private tutors in West and North Africa”
Today, Smartprof offers one-on-one or group live interactive sessions with the support of a relatively small team.
However, the team is expected to exceed 10 members over the coming weeks as the management, Mustapha and Hamza Faiz and Ali Faouzi, recruits a “small army of developers” to improve the quality of the “product by adding new functionalities and making it scalable.”
Smartprof is currently “the only major player [in Morocco] in terms of on-demand private tutoring,” Faiz told MWN, explaining that “other Ed tech actors provide pre-recorded educational content.”
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Talking about competition in the Moroccan market, Faiz stressed that Smartprof’s “team, operational efficiency, and ability to translate the best tutoring experience through our product” differentiate the startup from other edtech solutions that provide “e-learning, LMS [learning management systems] or school information management systems.”
While the Moroccan edtech landscape remains “very small” and “not substantial,” Faiz expressed gratitude for the support of “different actors and facilitators such as l’École Centrale Casablanca, an engineering school or Startgate, Morocco’s biggest startup campus.”
Morocco’s edtech sector remains in its early stages of development. However, the COVID-19 pandemic has highlighted the need to generalize e-learning solutions for all.
Thus, the shift towards the digitization of certain aspects of learning is expected to grow exponentially over the coming years and innovative solutions, led by the local startup ecosystem, are set to define the future of education in Morocco and Africa.
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