Fundraising Fox
gaga
Techstars '21Dhahran, SA · Founded 2021 · 225 employees on LinkedIn · 4 known investors
Find your way into gaga
Sign up to see every warm intro you have to gaga
- Paths you didn't know you had: your email and LinkedIn already hold routes to the gaga team. We find them for you
- 2nd- and 3rd-degree connections: the friend-of-a-friend routes that take hours to manually find through your inbox or LinkedIn
- Answers now, not in days: momentum is everything in a raise. Skip asking around whether someone knows someone
Days of research, done the moment you sign in, with every route ranked by how warm it is.
Saudi edtech platform offering live, teacher-led online lessons in Arabic for students aged 4 to 18.
Also known as GAGA · gaga-app
Founders & leadership
gaga was founded in 2021 by Abdullah Al-Khorasani.
Investors · 4
How we know: the Techstars portfolio · open dataset · Top 3000 Accelerator Startups (no YC) 2026-08 · Not right? Tell us
Also in the syndicate · 2
Company profile
researched Sep 2026GAGA is a Saudi Arabia-based education technology company operating an online platform that connects students with teachers for live, interactive lessons. The platform covers more than 1,000 educational programmes across over 200 academic and skill-based subjects, aimed at students between the ages of 4 and 18, and its teacher network is described as comprising over 1,000 expert teachers.
Rather than distributing pre-recorded video content, GAGA structures every session as a live class with a teacher present, positioning the service as an alternative to private tutoring and non-interactive e-learning. Gamification is used to sustain engagement among younger students, and the company is developing artificial intelligence tools intended to analyse student performance, identify knowledge gaps and adapt subsequent learning pathways while retaining human-led instruction. Its listed verticals include artificial intelligence, cloud computing, e-commerce, edtech and mobile apps.
Founding story
Abdullah Alkharsani and Eyad Alshabaan founded GAGA in 2021 around the view that most edtech platforms hand students a video and call it learning; their model instead placed a live teacher in every session.
Business model
GAGA sells live online tutoring and skill-based lessons directly to students and families through its platform, taking bookings for individual sessions with teachers drawn from its network.
Revenue is generated primarily from direct-to-consumer transactions based on individual lesson bookings, with pricing options reported to include pay-per-lesson arrangements and subscription-based plans; an initial booking includes an hour of complimentary instruction.
Traction
The platform offers more than 1,000 programmes across more than 200 subjects and connects students with over 1,000 teachers. Preqin records two completed deals, and total funding is reported at approximately $4.2 million since founding.
Latest developments
GAGA closed a $2.5 million pre-Series A round led by Phoenix Venture Partners with participation from family offices and individual and regional investors, bringing total funding to approximately $4.2 million. The proceeds are earmarked for recruiting more teachers, expanding the Arabic-language content library and continued AI development. Phoenix Venture Partners, headquartered at Abu Dhabi Global Market, invests in early-stage technology across fintech, healthtech, edtech and logistics in MENA; its founder and CEO Steve Khayyat cited GAGA's role in widening access to quality Arabic-language education.
▸Full profile — market position, technology, go-to-market, geography, history
Market position
GAGA competes in the Arabic-language live-learning segment of the Gulf edtech market, which sources describe as crowded overall but undercapitalised in live instruction; Saudi Arabia's edtech market is projected to exceed $1 billion by 2027, supported by a young population, high smartphone penetration and Vision 2030 digital education policy.
GAGA's stated differentiation is that every session is live with a real teacher, in contrast to platforms built on pre-recorded video, combined with Arabic-language, culturally relevant content and AI-based personalisation used to support rather than replace teachers.
Technology
The platform delivers real-time video-based lessons between students and teachers, layered with gamification mechanics and AI tools under development that analyse individual student performance to detect learning gaps and personalise each student's learning path.
Go-to-market
The company targets families in Saudi Arabia directly, growing through expansion of its teacher network and a deeper Arabic-language content library, with the Gulf region cited as a natural extension of the same live-instruction, local-language model.
Arabic-speaking students aged 4 to 18 and their families in Saudi Arabia, seeking academic tutoring, exam preparation and skill development.
Geography
Headquartered in Saudi Arabia, with Preqin listing Khobar as its location and coverage tagging Riyadh; Saudi Arabia is the near-term priority market, with the wider Gulf identified as a possible expansion path.
History
GAGA was founded in 2021 by Abdullah Alkharsani (also rendered Abdullah Al-Khorasani), who serves as CEO, together with Eyad Alshabaan. The founders started the company out of dissatisfaction with edtech platforms that supply video content in place of teaching. The company raised a $1.7 million seed round backed by Phoenix Venture Partners, and in 2026 closed a $2.5 million pre-Series A round, also led by Phoenix Venture Partners.
Compiled by commissioned research from 8 cited public sources — announcements, filings, and press listed under research sources below.
Key figures
latest reportedCompany-reported or press-reported figures, each dated to when it was claimed — not independently audited.
Related companies · 1
Companies working in the same space as gaga.
Timeline · 2
launches, deals, and filingsSaudi edtech GAGA closed a $2.5 million pre-Series A round led by Phoenix Venture Partners with participation from family offices and individual/regional investors, bringing total funding to about $4.2 million. Funds are allocated to hiring more teachers, expanding the Arabic-language content library and AI development.
$2.5M source ↗
GAGA previously raised a $1.7 million seed round; Preqin lists Phoenix Venture Partners as a current investor and records two completed deals with USD 1.7 million raised in its latest round at the time of listing.
$1.7M source ↗
Dated company events from announcements, filings, and press; legal rows summarize public dockets and regulator releases.
▸Research sources · 8
primary sources listed
- Gaga - APK Download for Android | Aptoidegaga-gaga-inc.en.aptoide.com · web
8 public sources were cited for this profile; the first-party ones are listed here.
Frequently asked questions
- What does gaga do?
- Saudi edtech platform offering live, teacher-led online lessons in Arabic for students aged 4 to 18.
- Who founded gaga?
- gaga was founded by Abdullah Al-Khorasani in 2021.
- Who are gaga's investors?
- gaga's investors include Techstars, Phoenix Venture Partners.
- Where is gaga headquartered?
- gaga is headquartered in Dhahran, SA.