Nigerian edtech platform, Klas, has secured $1 million in pre-seed funding in a round led by Ingressive Capital and featuring investment from Techstars, HoaQ Capital, and various angel investors. Klas, established in 2022 by Nathan Nwachuku and Lekan Adejumo, is a platform that allows users to create and sell ebooks, courses, and live classes.
Klas offers a range of features including class scheduling, payment processing, community interaction, analytics, and video conferencing. It caters to a wide array of subjects including coding, design, finance, art, and languages.
Klas is comparable to Shopify in its purpose; while Shopify provides an online platform for anyone to set up their stores and sell products, Klas enables its users to set up online schools and host classes, according to CEO Nwachuku.
Nwachuku’s personal journey inspired the creation of Klas. After losing an eye in an accident and spending six months away from school, Nwachuku wanted to establish an online physics class. The challenges he encountered on existing platforms led him to conceive Klas as a streamlined solution. His dedication to building Klas prompted him to decline a scholarship to Canada and drop out of college, and instead team up with his co-founder and CTO Adejumo in 2021. The platform’s creation was followed by an angel round of $180,000, triggering the journey of Klas which went on to join Techstars the next year.
Nwachuku identified a gap in the market where established platforms such as Kajabi and Thinkific can be overwhelming for newcomers because of their advanced features. Consequently, Klas could utilize its position as a late entrant by offering an easy-to-use toolset and a user-friendly experience. This approach makes it easy for beginners to host engaging online classes, given the increasing global demand for online education as these platforms’ role in training the future workforce becomes more and more crucial.
Nwachuku emphasized Klas’s focus on a closed ecosystem, unlike other large platforms who primarily function as integration toolkits. While other platforms might use third-party offerings like Zoom or Google Meet for class experiences or Slack for class management, Klas has built everything from scratch, including its virtual classroom.
“We don’t use Zoom or Google Meet; we actually built our tool called KlasLife, which doesn’t even use any video API. This was built from scratch and with a very unique video architecture,” Nwachuku asserted.
Klas currently has over 5,000 online schools (creators) utilizing their platform, who have earned “hundreds of thousands of dollars” according to Nwachuku. The platform also has 300,000 learners across more than 30 countries. Despite being part of a select group of African startups serving a global audience, most of Klas’s users are based in Nigeria.
To cater to its growing international audience, Klas currently accepts transactions in naira for Nigerian users and in dollars for its international users. This includes plans to introduce localized currency options in different countries as it focuses on expanding its presence in India and North America.
Offering a free plan with a 5% transaction fee, Klas aims to support up to 100,000 online schools globally by 2027. While positioned as a cost-effective alternative to platforms like Kajabi and Thinkific, Nwachuku commented that Klas may introduce a premium enterprise product, aiming at reskilling employees in large companies at $199 per month.
Regarding the recent investment, managing director of Techstars Toronto, Sunil Sharma expressed his satisfaction about backing Klas from its earliest stage and the abilities of the co-founders. He further highlighted his confidence in the platform by making a follow-on investment.
