Nexford has closed a seed round of $4 million in its quest to build a next-generation learning experience, designed to bridge the gap between higher education and global workplace needs.
“We as founders believe that lack of education remains the single largest root cause of most world challenges. Our mission is to enable greater social and economic mobility across the world, through education. We are determined to create an innovative learning experience with student interests at the forefront, one that better prepares students for today’s workplace,” said Fadl Al Tarzi, CEO, Nexford University.
The investor base includes angel investors from across the world, representative of the startup’s global ambitions. Investors include Magnify Ventures, which itself is a startup, in addition to angel investors from New York, Dubai, Cairo, Geneva and London.
The seed investment will be used to build the university’s underlying technology which uses Artificial Intelligence (AI) to offer students a personalized, engaging and yet affordable learning experience. This phase also includes designing and building a curriculum built from scratch, based on global employer needs. Specific details are yet to be disclosed however the University has indicated Nigeria, Egypt, and Philippines will be among their primary markets. Students in these markets face a severe shortage in high quality yet affordable American universities.
Al Tarzi commented: “There is a clear conflict between what is essentially the buyer and the seller within the higher education sector.” Nexford University solves this through offering a solution that redefines a university’s measure of success to; how career ready a student is at the end of their education.
Nigeria’s recently appointed Country Ambassador, Olamidun Majekodunmi may be reached (
omajek@nexford.com) for further information.