Gradely, an edtech startup, has been named the winner of the Nigerian leg of the MEST Africa Challenge Country Final Winner.
Gradely now stands a chance to win $50,000 in investment from the Meltwater Foundation, and the opportunity to join the MEST Africa incubator community in the finals of the MEST Africa Challenge.
How Gradely emerged winner
Gradely which was founded in 2019 by Boye Oshinaga, Femi Ibiwoye, Seyi Adelaju, and Babatunde Caleb, competed with 8 other startups for a chance to represent Nigeria in the finals of the MEST Africa Challenge. The Nigerian final was held virtually due to the COVID-19 pandemic.
The nine startups are Social Lender, Sycamore Integrated Solutions, TOJU, IderaOS, Padimi, Scrapays, At Your Service Technologies Ltd, Edusko, and Gradely.
Each startup had four minutes to pitch, followed by another four-minute question and answer session with our judges for the day; Patricia Jumi; Executive Director and Co-founder of Growth Africa, Ife Ojobanikan; Investment Associate at Microtraction, Mark Ihimoyan; Microsoft’s Director of Business Development for the Middle East & Africa and Josh Okpata; Venture Partner at MEST Africa.
The competing finalists were evaluated based on their value proposition, impact, size of their target market, customer identification, revenue model, competitor analysis, growth strategy, traction-to-date, and the expertise of their founding team among others.
Commenting on the win, Boye Oshinaga thanked the judges and his fellow participants for making it a worthwhile endeavor. He also thanked MEST Africa for continuing the competition virtually despite the challenges posed by COVID-19 and expressed excitement for the grand finale in August.
About Gradely
Gradely is a personalized online learning platform harnessing the power of data and AI to help schools and parents intervene in real-time to children’s learning gaps. CEO and Co-founder, Boye Oshinaga, explained that one of the critical issues on the continent is learning gaps in our education system, which only compound over time. Although more African children are going to school than ever before, there is still a huge literacy gap because students are not receiving a quality education.
