Shikho, one of Bangladesh’s better-known edtech startups, has raised fresh money to sell its digital learning tools directly to schools, colleges and universities, a shift away from relying mainly on students who sign up one by one.
The company announced a strategic round of Tk 8.75 crore, or roughly $0.7 million at current exchange rates. The money comes from two places. Members of business families connected to STS Group, whose education interests include International School Dhaka and Glenrich International School, have invested in a personal capacity. Singapore-based venture firm Wavemaker Partners, an existing backer, has also put in more.
Shikho did not disclose a valuation, how the round was split between investors, or how many institutions it hopes to sign up. Those gaps matter, because they make it hard to judge how far the new money will stretch.
From app downloads to institutional contracts
Shikho started in 2019 with a consumer app that adapts Bangladesh’s national curriculum into video lessons, quizzes and practice material. Co-founder and chief executive Shahir Chowdhury built the early business with seed money from education-focused investors, including LearnStart, the early-stage arm of Learn Capital, and Wavemaker.
The new plan targets organisations that teach at scale: schools, colleges, universities and training providers. According to the company, it will bundle curriculum-aligned content, assessment tools and AI-assisted learning support. The pitch is that teachers get better visibility into how individual students are doing and can adjust lessons accordingly, while students get material that responds to where they are struggling.
Selling to institutions is a common next step for edtech companies once direct-to-student growth slows. Contracts with schools can bring steadier revenue than monthly subscriptions paid by families, and they reduce the cost of winning each new user. The trade-off is a slower sales cycle, more customisation, and dependence on budgets that are often tight, especially outside Dhaka’s private school market.
The choice of investors fits that strategy. Backers with ties to established private schools bring sector experience and introductions that a startup would otherwise spend years building. Wavemaker’s return keeps an international venture investor on the cap table at a time when foreign money for Bangladeshi startups has thinned considerably.
What it means here
The size of the round is modest by regional standards, and it reflects the funding climate for Bangladeshi founders. Many startups that raised large rounds in 2021 and 2022 have since cut staff, merged or closed, and investors now tend to favour smaller cheques tied to clear revenue plans. A strategic round from local business families plus an existing investor is a pragmatic way to keep growing without a full-priced institutional raise.
For schools, the more important question is what “AI-enabled learning” will mean in practice. Bangladesh’s classrooms vary enormously in connectivity, device access and teacher training. Tools that work smoothly in an English-medium school in Gulshan may need very different delivery in a district-level college where students share phones and data is expensive. How Shikho handles low-bandwidth use, Bangla-language content and teacher workload will decide whether this becomes a broad education product or stays a premium add-on.
There is also a data question. As more student assessment moves onto private platforms, schools and parents will want clear answers on who holds learners’ records, how they are used to train or tune AI features, and what happens to that data if a contract ends. Bangladesh’s personal data protection rules are still taking shape, so institutions signing up early should set those terms in their contracts rather than wait for regulation.
If Shikho can show measurable gains in results or teacher time saved, the institutional route could give it a sturdier business than consumer subscriptions alone, and offer a template for other local edtech firms looking for a path through a lean funding market.
