Esho Shikhi gets pre-seed investment from Bangladesh Angels, BD Venture

Angel investment company Bangladesh Angels Network has closed a pre-seed investment round for Esho Shikhi Limited, an education-centric tech start-up. 

The official signing was done at the Banani office of BD Venture Limited, a co-investor in the round.

The investment round designed for a start-up draws the very first investment for building the minimum viable product and the core team of directors for the future company.

Esho Shikhi Limited looks to promote open access to education through high-quality, animated, Bangla language content generated by top coaches and tutors of the country. 

The contents accessible from anywhere and anytime are primarily intended for students out of Dhaka, as they are deprived of quality coaching available in the capital city.

Since partnering with Bangladesh Angels Network and BD Venture, the app of Esho Shikhi has been downloaded more than 40 thousand times, a press release of Bangladesh Angels Limited claimed. 

The app provides access to hundreds of hours of content on higher secondary, university entrance and job preparation courses.

"When we evaluated companies for our first ever funding round earlier in 2019, we saw the persistence, tenacity and commitment of Esho Shikhi founders in realising the vision of digital education over the last 2.5 years," said Nirjhor Rahman, CEO of Bangladesh Angels. 

The investment from Bangladesh Angels Network and BD Venture is being used for developing the technology platform, content library and building a well-rounded team to execute the business model. 

The idea of the project first came to the founders of Esho Shikhi Limited, while they were managing a nationwide network of coaching centres. 

They identified the gap between the quality of tuition available to students in smaller towns as well as rural areas as against those in the capital. 

They realised that many young learners, particularly as they reach SSC, HSC and beyond, must move to Dhaka to avail quality instruction to ace in various examinations.

Furthermore, the absence of quality Bangla content available on the internet for exam preparations, compared to those available in English encouraged them to prefer Bangla-language instructions for digital education. 

At the same time, the proliferation of smartphone device and internet users provided them a rich context to work on. 

Saiful Islam, the lead investor for Esho Shikhi adds that the investors at Bangladesh Angels "made their investment out of a sense of personal obligation, responsibility and commitment to society-with an objective to make education easy and fun for all while maintaining quality and high standards."