YaSchools, a Saudi startup specializing in educational management solutions, has successfully closed a $600,000 Seed round of funding from a group of angel investors.
YaSchools offer the region’s first-of-its-kind platform to manage the educational ecosystem, acting as the facilitator between all stakeholders—such as schools, teachers, and students—involved in the educational process. The platform utilizes big data, artificial intelligence, and financial technologies that can assist in processing tasks in an autonomous and fast-paced manner.
YaSchools was founded in 2021 in Saudi Arabia by entrepreneurs Mohamed Zohair, Ahmed Mahdy, and Yasser Nasr-Aldin, with the aim to improve the education experience through a stack of innovative services, on top of which is the facilitation of microlending solutions that provide parents with payment plans to cover all the educational expenses.
Since the launch of micro-lending services in early 2023, YaSchools has received financing requests worth more than $40 million. This further positions YaSchools as a strong partner to the financing entities that it works with, those that are already interested in investing in the educational sector.
Currently, YaSchools has 1,750 registered schools and serves 2,500 teachers and more than 92,000 parents. The startup’s ever-expanding clientele puts it on the road to becoming one of the fastest-growing startups in the educational sector.
Mohamed Zohair, co-founder and CEO of YaSchools, said that the closure of the seed round confirms the confidence of the investors in the platform and the effective role it plays in bridging the gap within the education system. As a regulator of the education ecosystem, YaSchools became the parent’s compass along the educational journey and the schools’ “business partner” by automating all the administrative work such as admission, registration, and tuition fee collection.
“Our goal is to make the education journey a hassle-free experience and lessen the financial burden on the parents; therefore, we are planning to add more services and products to our system”, Zohair added.
On the other hand, co-founder and the chief strategy officer and head of investment, Yasser Nasr-Aldin, confirmed that the fresh funding will be used to shore up the company’s existing and future expansion plans. Currently, the company is gearing up to launch in Jordan. The decision is based on an actionable plan that has been finalised and will be activated within a few weeks.
Nasr-Aldin added: “The company’s future expansion plan also includes the Middle East, North Africa, and Turkey (MENAT) region. The way we work to expedite that is by providing a package of localized services that meet the needs of parents in each country who may find it hard to find the best educational solutions for their children.”
It is worth noting that the MENAT target market size of YaSchools is around 56 million students at 270,000 schools generating $110 billion.
YaSchools currently provides an Islamic-compliant line of credit that allows users to pay educational expenses in installments of up to 12 months, in cooperation with many notable financial entities such as Tasheel Finance, Alinma Bank, Al Yusr Financing and Leasing Company Finance, Wataniya Finance, Al Amthal Finance, and Tabby, the leading provider of buy now, pay later (BNPL) solutions.
