Education saved these Cuban founders’ lives. Now they’re building an EdTech startup to give back

When the founders of Miami-based EdTech startup EducUp left their native Cuba and came to the US, they brought a lot of things: grit, determination, and top technical chops, to say the very least. What didn’t they come with? English proficiency.

But even a language barrier couldn’t prevent Carlos Raul, Yamel Barroso, and Yusnier Viera from establishing themselves in the US and achieving the American dream. Viera, for instance, who is a multiple World Record Holder and Mental Math World Champion, went from getting paid $20 a month as a university professor in Havana to landing appearances on Ellen and the Discovery Channel. CEO Raul is a Senior Software Engineer with more than 8 years of experience working for Fortune 500 companies. And Barroso, the company’s VP of Business, has a background building successful online businesses, particularly in the telecommunications space.

Now, the Miami-based trio has joined forces to build EducUp, a freemium platform for learning everything from foreign languages to math, coding, and college prep. The startup is building on their previous venture, Viera Academy, which primarily offered SAT and ACT test preparation courses before being wound down in 2019. Since EducUp’s founding in February 2020, upwards of 900,000 students from 175 countries around the world have signed up to one of EducUp’s 50 courses. And Felipe Sommer, co-founder of Nearpod, has recently joined EducUp as an investor and advisor.

“Education saved my life,” said Viera, who is EducUp’s VP of Education. “Thanks to my education and skills, I was able to escape the island.”

He continued: “I’m blessed because of the opportunity to go abroad, and it is my mission to educate people so that they themselves can find their freedom in the same way that I did.”

The team noted that the path to entrepreneurship was hard fought at times. “When I came to the US, I didn’t even know what a credit card was,” Viera revealed. Now he and the team have a keen understanding of the ins and outs of the tech funding ecosystem – perhaps the most capitalist of all pursuits and a marked departure from the education they received growing up in Cuba.

“There is one advantage in being born and raised in Cuba,” Viera added. “We came from nothing, so we’re not afraid to start from nothing again.” He explained that they are more open to taking the risks required to become a successful entrepreneur because, in his words: “we’ve already made it – we’re free.”

EducUp’s platform gamifies the process of education and keeps students engaged by giving them achievements, points, levels, and daily goals. At the core of the platform are educators who create the content for mass dissemination. Students also have the opportunity for live one-on-one time with tutors to fine tune their learning. The platform is available in English and Spanish, and courses are available in English, Spanish, Portuguese and German.

Currently, most of the students on the platform are individuals. However, EducUp is already being piloted in a few schools. CEO Raul signaled that they are considering pursuing a B2B strategy as well going forward.

The app gained popularity during Covid, when learning turned remote but many schools’ adoption of tech was lagging behind. “28% of Latin American students still haven’t come back to school, two years after the start of the pandemic,” said Viera. That leaves a lot of room for growth from enterprising students to get ahead using EducUp.

Tellingly, the most popular courses on the platform are English language learning courses. At the moment, only a select group of creators can launch a course on EducUp. But within the next few weeks, EducUp plans to roll out the ability for any qualified creator to create and monetize their course.

EducUp’s 15-person team of employees are fully distributed around the world. The company has plans to expand, having just been accepted into On Deck’s ODX accelerator program.

Ready to learn something new? Check out what’s on offer at EducUp.io.

Photo at top of post: Left to right, EducUp co-founders Yamel Barroso, Carlos Raul and Yusnier Viera, and EducUp advisor/investor Felipe Sommer. Photo provided by EducUp.

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Riley Kaminer