SchoolTry, a Sweden-headquartered education management platform founded by Ismail Eleburuike, a Swedish-Nigerian entrepreneur who left Nigeria for Sweden in 2008 and earned two Master's degrees there, has built a base of 400,000 active paying students on its tertiary education platform, with more than two million total users including lecturers and institutional partners. The startup serves Obafemi Awolowo University, the University of Ilorin and Kogi State University, and powers all higher institutions in Oyo State.
The path to those numbers ran through an unexpected inflection point. In the early phase of SchoolTry's life, the platform was deployed across Command Schools, a network of 45 Nigerian Army-managed institutions. After a full year of operation, a change of military leadership forced the startup out. What followed surprised Eleburuike: 15 of the 40 schools that had been approved to use the platform kept paying for it out of their own budgets, independently of the Army headquarters that had terminated the relationship. Those schools had seen enough value in the product to fund it themselves. He considers that moment a turning point in the startup's journey.
University institutions took notice. Following the Command Schools deployment, several higher education institutions approached SchoolTry to replicate the software for them. That demand became the startup's most significant revenue channel and prompted a formal pivot away from primary and secondary schools toward universities, polytechnics, colleges of education and vocational training centers in Kenya. SchoolTry launched in 2020 serving K-12, but its tertiary product only started in late 2023. Within one year of deploying for higher education, the startup generated more revenue than it had in the previous three years serving schools.
The platform handles student course access, administrative management of students and teachers, assignment distribution, attendance tracking and performance grading. A transcript service currently operational at the University of Ilorin lets students send their academic records anywhere in the world in five clicks, though data migration constraints at some institutions have slowed broader rollout of that feature.
Eleburuike is building AI job-matching infrastructure on top of the student data SchoolTry holds. The system matches students with remote or part-time employment opportunities based on their academic records and profile while they are still studying. SchoolTry is also using its student data to connect prospective candidates with online universities and to provide alternative admission routes for students who could not gain entry to overcrowded federal and state tertiary institutions in Nigeria.
The business model gap is significant. Only 0.2 percent of SchoolTry's users are paying customers, though 90 percent of those paying users sit in the higher education segment the startup now prioritizes. Eleburuike has said he has yet to reach one percent of his addressable market. The startup has raised over $1 million from angel investors over the past three years and is continuing to raise capital.
SchoolTry is operational in Cameroon and running pilots in Burkina Faso alongside its primary markets in Nigeria and Kenya. Eleburuike has presented the platform to Nigeria's Vice President during a Sweden visit, and the startup has been in contact with the Minister of Education and several state governors about broader government adoption.
