Dubai Future Accelerators and KHDA hold investor day for seven edtech startups

Dubai Future Accelerators, a program of the Dubai Future Foundation, held its first investor day for a cohort of seven education technology startups it had run with Dubai's private education regulator, the Knowledge and Human Development Authority (KHDA), Gulf News reported on January 25, 2021. The cohort was hosted at Area 2071, the foundation's innovation ecosystem, and the companies pitched to an expert panel of investors.

The seven startups had worked with the accelerator and the KHDA over seven weeks. They were Amy, an AI-based math tutor that plugs into school learning management systems; Awecademy, which offers future-focused programs online and offline; GoBubble School, a digital community for schools with more than 1,700 schools registered in 68 countries; Melzo, a tool for teachers and students to create virtual and augmented reality content; Qubit, a classroom virtual reality product; Solfeg.io, an app for music teachers; and WAZZA, software for running preschool and elementary programs.

According to the report, the cohort reached more than 22,000 students during the program. The organizers said the startups signed five commercial contracts worth more than $14 million (about Dh51.49 million) and set up 11 pilot projects covering 538 schools across the UAE. The report did not name the participating schools. Investors and advisers listed as attending included Wamda, Shorooq Partners, Middle East Venture Partners, Iliad Partners, VentureSouq, EQ2 Ventures, Roland Berger, Dubai Angel Investors, the Bahrain chapter of Oqal, Ripples Impact and Skaleup Ventures.

Dubai Future Accelerators is described in the report as a flagship initiative of the Dubai Future Foundation, intended to position Dubai as a hub for innovation and emerging technologies and as a destination for startups. The investor day was the first such event the accelerator had held. Abdul Aziz Al Jaziri, deputy chief executive of the foundation, spoke positively about the quality of participation. The KHDA is the regulator for private education in Dubai. The cohort focused on finding educational products and prototypes that could be deployed at city-wide scale, and over the seven weeks the startups worked with the accelerator and the KHDA to refine their solutions for scale.