Medly AI has raised almost £6 million seed funding ‘to give every kid an AI tutor’.
Described as the world’s first AI tutor for exam prep, the platform launched in February 2025 and claims to have scaled its user base to more than 400,000 in the UK alone.
It has also joined major British success stories ElevenLabs and Pearson in being awarded the Department for Education’s competitive AI Tutoring Tools Pioneers Programme grant in July this year, which is focused on improving the academic attainment of disadvantaged pupils across England.
The round was led by Felix Capital and backed by existing investors Eka Ventures and Ada Ventures.
Several angel investors also participated in the round, including Andrey Dobrynin, CEO at InvestEngine, Al Giles, venture partner at Creator Fund, Jean Hammond, general partner at LearnLaunch Accelerator, and Hector Mason, general partner at Episode 1 Ventures.
Medly was founded by UCL medicine graduates Dr Paul Jung and Dr Kavi Samra, who met during their first year of secondary school at age 11. Having both grown up in low-income households, they were unable to afford private tutors during their school and university years.
This experience, combined with Paul’s insights from his PhD in Neuropsychiatry and Kavi’s time as an honorary teaching fellow at UCL Medical School, inspired the duo to create an inclusive way for students to access help.
Based on cutting-edge neuroscience and teaching theory, Medly’s AI has been designed to act as a personal tutor for students. Built on a proprietary combination of seven LLMs, the AI tutor is able to deliver a tailored service to each student, tracking progress, intuiting learning styles and leveraging teaching theory to tailor feedback style.
The seed raise will be used to grow the community of students Medly supports in the UK and roll-out support across additional international markets.
In the US, Medly has recently launched SATs with promising early traction and are iterating rapidly, with plans to expand to APs and ACTs by the end of this year.
“Almost a third of 11–16-year-olds receive some form of private tutoring. For those who can afford it, it’s a powerful advantage. For those who can’t, it’s an equally powerful reinforcer of the status quo,” said Dr Jung.
“We’ve built something to disrupt that. Our custom AI gives every child access to a 24/7 personal tutor that adapts to how they learn and responds to their unique needs. In just one exam season, the majority of students using Medly were able to improve by at least an entire grade – that’s a game-changer for young people.
“This capital will enable us to support even more students and prove that tailored academic help can come without a premium price tag.”
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Angela Chou, investor at Felix Capital, commented: “Over recent years, we’ve seen technology creating positive changes in people’s lives in many ways. Education, in particular, has the potential to fundamentally shape one’s life trajectory for the better, and even more so with marginal cost of content creation.
“We are particularly excited by Medly’s mission and track record to provide effective exam prep, powered by AI, to hundreds of thousands of young people We are also deeply touched by Paul and Kavi’s personal stories, as well as impressed by their ability to build and scale Medly to a meaningful platform in such a short period of time.”
Check Warner, co-founding partner at Ada Ventures, said: “Paul and Kavi are true ‘Inclusive Alpha’ founders. They are harnessing the power of AI to level the playing field of education and ensure every single student has the chance to reach their potential.
“Medly is a living, breathing example of how you can build a scalable, revenue-generative business whilst also driving a positive impact for students and their families. Already changing lives for thousands of students across the UK, we cannot wait to see the team replicate this impact at a global scale and build a category defining business.”
Jon Coker, general partner & founder, Eka Ventures, added: “We led Medly’s pre-seed last year and have been blown away by the speed of progress and quality of product Kavi and Paul have built.
“They are on an incredibly important mission and we are delighted that Felix is leading this round of funding to support the next stage of growth and product.”
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