Investing in Education: Innovations for Africa’s education sector

Executive Summary

Learning outcomes across Africa are in decline. Gaps in teaching quality, infrastructure, and learning resources persist. Despite education being the second-largest household expense, 9 in 10 children in sub-Saharan Africa cannot read by age 10. A youthful population and rising entrepreneurial energy create immense potential for scalable, tech-enabled solutions — but just 3% of all VC funding in Africa goes to education ventures.

In response, Acumen launched the Acumen East Africa Education Facility (AEF) in 2020 to tackle systemic challenges in sub-Saharan Africa’s education sector through Patient Capital, ecosystem support, and performance-based financing. Over five years, AEF deployed $6 million across five early-stage ventures in East Africa, collectively reaching over 3 million children, 200,000 teachers, and 8,000 schools.

This report distills key lessons for funders, entrepreneurs, and impact investors committed to unlocking the transformative potential of educational innovation.

The Facility was designed as a returnable grant invested through equity and convertible note instruments combined with technical assistance and performance-based financing (PBF).

Technical assistance supported product development and commercialization. PBF rewarded ventures for meeting impact targets, offering a replicable model for linking capital to outcomes.

A new way forward

This report demonstrates that education investment in Africa demands both innovation and intentional capital design. There are major opportunities to address pain points in education. Funders can allocate more resources to back models with strong business fundamentals and public value. And impact investors must continue to experiment; because the stakes are far too high to settle for business as usual. With capital fully deployed, AEF now transitions to portfolio management and reflection. As we look ahead, we’re building on what we’ve learned and shifting our focus beyond K–12 to vocational training, post-secondary education, other upskilling pathways, and labor-matching. Acumen will continue to test performance-linked financing and support ventures with the time, tools, and flexibility needed to achieve scale and sustainability.

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Solve a real problem

Products must solve a problem for the end user (student or teacher) and the payor (parent or school).

Route to market

Distribution strategies must adapt to fragmented systems, infrastructure gaps, and affordability constraints.

Price for value

Solutions must be priced to fit school and household payment cycles.

Customer validation

Traction often begins outside centralized systems, through decentralized procurement or partnerships.

Product-market fit

On average, it took four years to achieve traction. Patient, flexible capital is critical.

“In the Edtech field, you need to switch from selling vitamins to selling painkillers. When solutions address a direct pain point, the value proposition is a lot more compelling.”

Isaac Nyangolo, Co-founder & CEO, Zeraki

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