EdVentures selects 12 Egyptian startups for Mastercard Foundation EdTech Fellowship

EdVentures, the investment arm of Egypt's Nahdet Misr Group, announced in a statement dated June 6, 2024, the 12 startups chosen for the first Egyptian cohort of the Mastercard Foundation EdTech Fellowship. The companies were selected from more than 200 applicants in a process that began in April 2024.

The fellowship consists of an eight-month acceleration program that includes training, mentoring, industry workshops, networking events and courses in learning science. Each startup can receive up to $60,000 in equity-free funding, followed by as much as one year of further support after the program ends. The selected ventures work in areas such as language teaching, science and technology subjects, coding and artificial intelligence, speech therapy, career development, literacy, and services for deaf and hard-of-hearing learners. Members of the cohort include iSchool, Career 180, Nafham by Tayro, Science Street and Deaf Gain.

EdVentures was established in 2017 and reports having supported more than 76 startups and invested in 20 of them. The fellowship in Egypt is planned to run for three years and to reach 36 startups in total. It is an initiative of the Mastercard Foundation Centre for Innovative Teaching and Learning, whose earlier fellowship cohorts in South Africa, Nigeria and Kenya reached 2.6 million learners in 2023.