Egyptian ed-tech startup Learning Rockets is helping children from pre-K to Grade 6 learn English through a connected system of books, a learning app and progress data.
The World Bank estimates that 70 per cent of 10-year-olds in Egypt cannot read and understand a simple text, while the country is rated “low proficiency” in the 2025 EF English Proficiency Index.
“In Egyptian schools, English lives in the school book and stays there,” co-founder and CEO Mariam Soliman told Disrupt Africa. “I saw three problems up close. Practice stops at the classroom door: at home, nothing connects to the lesson a child just learned. The apps parents download are fun, but they teach their own course, not the one the child is tested on. And nobody – teacher, principal or parent – sees how a child is doing until the exam. In Upper Egypt, add weak internet and old devices, and most digital products simply don’t work.”
Founded in Assiut in Upper Egypt, Learning Rockets launched the first prototype of its Bee Degree app in 2023, with the idea for the business having started at home.
“My daughter became fluent in English because we taught it to her at home, and I kept asking myself – why can’t other children in Upper Egypt have the same chance?” Soliman said. “I had spent more than 10 years in business and finance, and I decided to build that chance myself.”
Connecting the classroom and home
The startup brings books, an app and learning data together in one system.
“The app is Bee Degree. Every unit of our books, and of Egypt’s national English course from KG1 to Grade 6, becomes games, quizzes and reading activities that children play in class or at home,” Soliman said. “It works offline and on older, low-cost devices. Children log in with a code printed on a card, so they need no email or password.”
“We also own both sides. We write the books and build the games for the same units, so the classroom and the app never disagree, and we built everything to work offline on low-cost devices,” she said.
The data closes the loop
“Teachers, principals, school groups and parents each have a dashboard that shows how every child is doing, week by week, instead of waiting for exam results. We also train teachers to use the whole system in class,” Soliman said.
She leads the company alongside executive manager George Gamil, who runs day-to-day operations, with a team of 11 curriculum writers, illustrators, developers and trainers.
“Seventy percent of our full-time team are young women from Upper Egypt,” she said. “That matters to me, because good jobs for young women are still scarce here.”
Growing through schools
Schools have driven the startup’s growth. More than 100,000 students now learn with Learning Rockets in over 200 partner schools across all of Egypt’s governorates.
“The clearest sign of trust came this school year. A group of 63 schools joined at once, and we set up every branch, class and student account in September 2026,” said Soliman.
Bee Degree has more than 10,000 downloads on Google Play and a 4.8-star rating, though Soliman said this understates real usage. “Most children reach the app through their school, often on offline copies we install on school tablets and classroom smart panels,” she said.
Schools pay Learning Rockets per student, per school year, for a package including the app, readers, teacher dashboard and printed books. Schools brought in 92 per cent of revenue in 2025, with five per cent coming through a distribution partner and three per cent from parents subscribing directly in the app.
The model is working. In 2025, Learning Rockets made revenue of EGP6.3 million, with a 68 per cent gross margin and EGP1.6 million in net profit.
“So far we have grown mainly on our own revenue, plus non-dilutive prizes,” Soliman said. “We were profitable in 2025, and we are now opening an investment round to fund the next stage.”
Support for the next stage
The startup won the Orange Social Venture Prize in Egypt in 2024, and has taken part in a host of programs, including the Standard Chartered Foundation’s Women in Tech Accelerator, implemented with support from Village Capital.
“The program gave us time to step back from daily operations and work on the business itself: sharpening our pitch, tightening our numbers and planning our growth, alongside mentors and a group of women founders facing the same challenges. The grant went straight back into the business,” Soliman said.
“It also gave us credibility at the right moment. Within a year we were a She’s Next Egypt finalist, joined the UNDP and Flat6Labs accelerator, and were selected for Web Summit.”
Expanding beyond Egypt
Learning Rockets currently operates only in Egypt, but Soliman said there is still plenty of room for growth at home, with the country having about 25 million school students and around 11,000 private schools.
A new version of Bee Degree is heading to Google Play and the App Store, alongside a campaign to bring parents of its school students into the app.
“We are also building Rocket Talk, an offline speech engine that listens to children and scores their pronunciation. The engine is built; the next step is training it on children’s voices,” she said.
International expansion is now on the cards, and Soliman plans to use Web Summit, which will take place in Lisbon in November, to quicken the process.
“At Web Summit we are looking for publishers, distributors and school groups that want a ready book-plus-app system. Our first targets are North and East Africa and the Middle East, and over time we plan to add more languages,” she said.
Building from Assiut
Getting this far has not been easy, with cash flow a key challenge.
“Our revenue follows the school year. Schools pay at the start of the year, and some contracts pay in two installments, in December and April. Banks look for a steady monthly inflow, so even with signed school contracts and a profitable year, getting working capital has been hard,” Soliman said.
The realities of the classroom have also shaped the product.
“Many schools in Upper Egypt have weak internet and old devices, and many teachers had never used a learning app. So we built offline copies, versions for older Android tablets and classroom smart panels, and logged in with a printed card code. We train the teachers ourselves, and we have refurbished 343 devices so schools can use what they already have.”
Then there is the matter of building a startup far from the capital.
“Most of Egypt’s startup ecosystem sits in Cairo, a long way from Assiut,” Soliman said. “The hardest part of being a woman entrepreneur outside Cairo isn’t talent, or even the idea. It’s whether you’re willing to keep showing up anyway.”