South African Tech Startup That Uses WhatsApp to Help High School Students Secures $2 Million in Funding

• FoondaMate is an edtech startup focused on helping high school students who don't have access to study material and they recently received $2 million in seed funding
• The South African company relies on students having access to smartphones and the low-data costs of WhatsApp and Facebook Messenger to communicate with them and send study material and ultimately study online
• FoondaMate has been used by over 400 000 students in over 30 countries since its launch and hopes to grow even more significant with the injection of funding

A South African educational company, FoondaMate, which describes itself as a "robot study buddy" has received $2 million or R31 million in funding.

FoondaMate was founded by Dacod Magagula and Tao Boyle and was created to assist school learners in Africa who didn't have Wi-Fi but could use low-data apps such as WhatsApp and Facebook Messenger.

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The funding was led by Venture Capitalist firm LocalGlobe from the United Kingdom that focuses on seed and impact investments, TechCabal reports.

FoondaMate says it makes education accessible to those who might have no other means of getting study material, according to its website. The company currently provides the service to students to ask questions, source past examination papers and study material via WhatsApp or Facebook messenger.

It currently serves over 400 000 students aims to reach 50 million users by scaling up with the recent funding injection, according to TechCrunch.

The edutech company has a footprint across 30 countries including Colombia, Mexico, Brazil, and Indonesia and is available in 10 languages.

A Cape Town barber is converting a Mercedes Benz van into a mobile hairdresser to give free haircuts

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Warren Theunis is on a mission to convert a Mercedes-Benz van into a mobile barber. There's only one snag, he doesn't have a bottomless wallet. The Cape Town barber's heart of gold comes across in his love for supporting the seniors in the city, Briefly News reports.

Theunis has provided free haircuts to pensioners once a month in Cape Town since 2018 as an act of kindness.

Three years ago Theunis was part of a '16 Days for Youth' project where he provided haircuts to the younger generation from a sponsored mobile barber. Subsequent to the 16 days project Theunis was bitten by the mobile barber bug and set about trying to buy his own van. He sold his motorbike and raised just under R20 000 in a BackaBuddy fund to purchase a 22-seater Mercedes-Benz Sprinter.

Source: Briefly News