Kenyan Startup Kidato Bags $125,000 Seed Funding After Being Accepted into US-Based Accelerator Y Combinator

Kidato, a Kenyan ed-tech startup, has been accepted into Silicon Valley-based accelerator, Y Combinator’s Winter 2021 group. 

The startup will as a result receive $125,000 (Sh13 million) in seed funding and further investment opportunities at a March demo day.

Kidato, which was founded last year, offers online academic and after-school classes for K-12 students and joins Nigerian Mono, and Ivorian Djamo as part of the 2021 cohort.

Kidato online classes have a student-teacher ratio of 5:1 and teach the same international curriculum as other private schools at pocket-friendly prices that suit the needs of the middle-class in Africa.

Kidato has over 400 registered students and more than 200 using it to supplement learning with skill-based classes. 50 percent of its over 30 teachers work full time.

The startup was founded by Sam Gichuru, who is also the founder of Nailab incubator in Nairobi. Gichuru has a history with Y Combinator, having unsuccessfully participated in the accelerator six years ago with recruitment startup Kuhustle.

Y Combinator is an American seed money startup accelerator launched in March 2005 and has since been used to launch more than 2,000 companies, including Stripe, Airbnb, Cruise Automation, DoorDash, Coinbase, Instacart, Dropbox, Twitch, and Reddit.