The global education system continues to face significant challenges in providing equitable access to quality personalised education. Traditional tutoring, valued at £7B in the UK alone, remains prohibitively expensive for most families, creating a widening achievement gap that affects millions of students worldwide. Medly AI bridges this gap with an adaptive, curriculum-based AI tutor designed to democratise education by providing personalised learning at just 5% of traditional tutoring costs. The platform combines advanced AI technology with neuroscience principles and teaching theories to create a comprehensive learning system tailored to specific exam requirements. With features including personalised exam papers, real-time marking, progress tracking, and curriculum-specific content aligned with actual exam boards, Medly AI helps students improve their academic performance across subjects like GCSE English, Science, and Maths. The company has already gained impressive traction with over 30,000 users who spend an average of 40 minutes daily on the platform and achieve significant grade improvements.
LondonTechWatch caught up with Medly AI Cofounder and COO Kavi Samra to learn more about the business, its future plans, and recent seed round.
Who were your investors and how much did you raise?
We raised £1.7M in our seed round. The investment was led by Eka Ventures, with Ada Ventures contributing £550,000, alongside angel investors. We also have institutional partners including UCL, Innovate UK, Microsoft, and Google. Microsoft has provided up to £150,000 in credits for our operational and AI costs, and we received a £15,000 grant from Innovate UK.
Tell us about your product or service.
Medly AI is an adaptive, curriculum-based AI tutor designed to democratise education by providing personalized learning. Our platform:
- Offers personalized tutoring tailored to specific exam boards (GCSE, A-Levels, AP, IB)
- Uses a proprietary architecture based on neuroscience and teaching theory
- Provides step-by-step exam practice with real-time marking and feedback
- Tracks student progress on a specification point basis over time
- Allows students to track their progress in granular detail
- Creates personalised exam papers tailored to student ability and syllabus
What inspired the start of Medly AI?
Our founding team comes from lower socioeconomic backgrounds and experienced educational inequality firsthand. While in medical school, we worked as tutors for more affluent families and witnessed how one-on-one education dramatically improves student attainment and interest. The COVID-19 pandemic further highlighted how inequality starts with education. Our personal experiences motivated us to democratize access to quality personalized education through AI technology.
How is it different?
Unlike conventional AI tutoring platforms that simply wrap around LLMs like ChatGPT, Medly’s architecture includes:
- Multiple specialized AI models working together (teaching theory LLM, mental state LLM, progress tracking LLM, etc.)
- Neuroscientific assessment of motivation and engagement
- Real-time assessment of students’ curriculum understanding
- Personalized exam questions based on individual learning patterns
- Curriculum-specific content aligned with actual exam boards
- Safety mechanisms with safeguarding within the architecture to prevent hallucinations and inappropriate conversations
What market you are targeting and how big is it?
We’re currently focused on the 30M students aged 14-18 preparing for exams like GCSEs, A-Levels, AP, and IB. The global AI in education market was valued at $3.43B in 2023 and is projected to reach $54.5B by 2032. The global private tutoring market was worth around $96.75 billion in 2023 and could grow to approximately $181.42B by 2032. In the UK alone, the private tutoring market is valued at £7B.
What’s your business model?
We operate on a dual revenue model:
- B2C Free App: All students get access to a lite version of our backend architecture enabling anyone to practice on their mobile – think of it like a curriculum-based version of Duolingo with an AI teacher.
- B2C WebApp: To access Medly Exams which takes full advantage of our architecture and allows for students to do full length exam papers, get personalized insights and more.
Our profit margins range from 45% for B2B to 55% for B2C subscriptions.
How are you preparing for a potential economic slowdown?
We’re focusing on:
- Maintaining strong unit economics with healthy LTV:CAC ratios
- Building viral growth mechanisms that reduce our dependency on paid acquisition
- Diversifying revenue streams through both B2C and B2B channels
- Leveraging partnerships with educational institutions for stability
- Continuous product improvement to maintain high retention rates
What was the funding process like?
The funding process originated from the Hatchery startup incubator programme at BaseKX, UCL’s entrepreneurship hub. We demonstrated rapid product iteration and user impact, which impressed our investors. Ada Ventures conducted focused due diligence to maintain momentum. The process validated our approach and provided valuable feedback that helped refine our business model.
What are the biggest challenges that you faced while raising capital?
As medical doctors transitioning to entrepreneurship, we faced challenges convincing investors of our technical capabilities and business acumen. Additionally, operating in the education sector, where ROI timelines can be longer, presented challenges when pitching to VCs. Balancing product development with fundraising activities was also demanding, especially while maintaining clinical commitments.
What factors about your business led your investors to write the cheque?
Investors were impressed by:
- Our clear social impact mission addressing educational inequality
- Strong early traction with over 20,000 users and 60% month-over-month growth
- Our proprietary AI architecture based on neuroscience and teaching theory
- Clear market opportunity in the growing EdTech sector
- Our diverse backgrounds combining medical expertise with technical skills
- Healthy unit economics and clear path to profitability
- Strong retention metrics (40 minutes/day spent learning, 45% W6 retention)
What are the milestones you plan to achieve in the next six months?
- Begin B2B sales to educational institutions
- Improve our teaching theory and AI architecture
- Enhance multi-modal support and launch voice mode
- Optimize our viral growth mechanisms and referral system
What advice can you offer companies in London that do not have a fresh injection of capital in the bank?
- Focus on building a product users genuinely love and will advocate for
- Leverage free resources from startup support organizations
- Be creative with growth strategies that don’t require significant capital
- Prioritize strong unit economics from day one
- Build relationships with potential investors before you need the money
- Consider non-dilutive funding sources like grants and competitions
- Partner with established organizations in your sector for credibility
- Be extremely clear about your key metrics and what success looks like
Where do you see the company going in the near term?
- Become the go-to AI tutor for all major exams globally
- Launch a UGC platform/marketplace (“Medly Open”) for undergraduate level students
- Expand our team with strategic hires in development, content, and marketing
What is your favourite restaurant in London?
While we’ve been quite busy building Medly AI, we do enjoy Dishoom when we get a chance to celebrate milestones!
