Kuwait-based Baims has secured a seed round funding, the first education technology (edtech) investment in Kuwait. The round was led by AlWazzan Education with participation from Seeds Partners and several angel investors. The amount of investment is undisclosed.

Founded in 2017 by Yousef Alhusaini and Bader AlRasheed, Baims is the first to digitise the offline tutoring experience in Kuwait, making educational content accessible to students at all times.

Baims commenced operations with tailored tutoring courses based on university curricula. It then expanded its scope to include multiple colleges and universities in Kuwait and Riyadh, in addition to adding courses for high school students. With a recent 70 per cent discount on the usual price tag of a normal tutoring hour, the startup managed to break even within 24 hours.

The co-founders are now looking to boost the platform’s growth within the GCC and the wider Middle East and North Africa (Mena) region and create a more dynamic and fuller experience for students.

“Our ultimate goal is to be a part of the student’s life, Baims stands for Big Aims and our aim is to build a strong youth community for a better educational ecosystem in the GCC & MENA region and improve educational content,” said Bader AlRasheed, co-founder and chief technology officer (CTO) at Baims.

The platform offers a revenue-sharing model to participating instructors, who provide content tailored to each subject's curriculum by recorded courses, notes and quizzes. As of 2020, the startup has created more than 1,000 recorded courses and 30,000 lectures, recording more than 450,000 course enrollments.

As the COVID-19 outbreak continues, Baims is now offering all of its high school courses for free, which has attracted more than 130,000 new course subscriptions.

“Baims has been profitable since day one, and we believe that everyone should make money when they work with Baims. So basically, instructors invest their time and teach students, and create a new source of income, and they can do that while they are anywhere and anytime,” said Yousef Alhusaini, co-Founder and chief executive officer (CEO) at Baims.