Numerade

What is the mission?

Numerade provides students with a short-form video education platform specifically targeting STEM problems. Their goal is to build a platform where every student in the world can have access to their own personalised tutor in an accessible and affordable manner.

Who are the founders?

Nhon, co-founder and CEO, is from LA. His parents originally emigrated to the US from Vietnam, finding refuge from the war. Growing up poor, he initially went to public school (LAUSD) where his grades got him a scholarship to attend private school. There, the gap in terms of access to education resources became tangible as most of his peers had private tutoring sessions completely out of reach for him and the childhood friends he grew up with. He shared the desire of upward mobility via education with his co-founder and CTO Alex, whom he met while working at Google (product role in programmatic ads).

Alex, co-founder and CTO, shares a similar story to Nhon and is the previous founder of two EdTech companies, HugeIQ and TutorCast.

Why did Khaled get involved?

Nhon and Alex’s story resonated with me as the feeling of injustice they dealt with while growing up is not theoretical to me. Being put in a class for challenged children with my brother when I moved to France at 5 years old, I understood far too well that the illusion of meritocracy our society struggles to maintain is a double-edged sword for most underprivileged kids.

Little can match the resolve of founders who leverage the scars inherited from their personal lives to fix a broken part of society. Beyond the uncommon level of resolve and drive of Nhon and Alex, their unique understanding of the challenges students without privilege face and their ability to build the most compelling content, in the relevant format, while scaling one of the largest audiences in the industry without real marketing spending was for me unprecedented, with over 10 years investing in EdTech companies.

There are no excuses to maintain or justify artificial barriers (unaffordable private tutoring) to education, and it was clear to me that it was not only the right model but the perfect team with the right kind of education to break these barriers and scale their impact globally.