• Noon Academy, the largest and fastest-growing global EdTech platform in MENA raises a $13m pre-B round led by STV
• STV previously co-led the company’s $8.6m series-A
• The company added 3 million students during COVID, effectively doubling their user base
• The company offers an unprecedented social learning experience and plans to expand the platform globally

The investment will support ongoing innovation and development of Noon’s unique social learning offer, and team growth with the hire of additional top talent.

RIYADH,  KSA  (June  2020): Noon Academy, the leading and fastest-growing global EdTech platform in MENA, announced today that it has raised $13 million in Pre-B funding.

The round was led by  STV –which previously co-led the company’s previous Series A round– with  participation  from  additional  investors  Alturki Holding  and  Ahmed  El  Kalla’s  NFX Ventures. Interest in the raise led to oversubscription; while the initial target was $5 million, the company closed a $13 million raise this week, signaling strong investor confidence and validation despite it being a challenging time for start-ups seeking financing.

The Saudi-based firm was founded in 2013 by Mohammed Aldhalaan and Dr. Abdulaziz Alsaeed as a simple test preparation website. Seven years and thousands of data-driven experiments later, Noon Academy has transformed into a versatile, comprehensive online learning platform with over six million registered users.

EdTech has largely been focused on serving Education, but the next generation of EdTech companies are taking a student-centric approach. Noon Academy is one of the companies spearheading the efforts toward direct-to-student learning. Students are eager to learn if given the right tools and engaged effectively, and the 13x student growth Noon Academy has seen over the past year and the above-average engagement levels support that" said Ahmad Alshammari, Principal Investor at STV. "We are proud to work with a team that is enhancing and reimagining the learning experience"

The company’s main differentiator lies in its functionality; their platform incorporates social and gamification features that enable users to have an enjoyable, collaborative learning experience with teachers and fellow students through study groups, peer engagement, and contests.  This  has  resulted  in  its  social  learning  platform  achieving  5  times  the  global industry average of a student’s daily engagement.

“Our  fully  interactive  and  fun  platform  has  been  built  on  the  insight  that  the  biggest obstacle to learning isn’t comprehension, but rather boredom” commented Mohammed Aldhalaan, Noon Academy’s co-founder and CEO “With this investment, we’re aiming to bring together 50 million students and tutors from around the world by 2023.”

The next phase of growth will see the development of additional functionality that enables schools around the world to easily utilize the platform to address their specific needs. This is particularly  relevant  as  students  will  continue  to  study  from home for the foreseeable future.   Noon Academy’s 119-strong in-house team is currently split across offices in Saudi Arabia, Egypt, India and Pakistan. The investment will also support the opening of a new company hub in London, where Product, Design, and Data Science teams will be based.

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