Medly AI, an exam preparation startup, has raised a £6 million seed round led by Felix Capital, with participation from existing investors Eka Ventures and Ada Ventures. Several angel investors also took part, 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.
Built on a proprietary combination of seven LLMs and grounded in neuroscience and teaching theory, Medly's AI acts as a personal tutor for each student, tracking progress, intuiting learning styles and tailoring the style of feedback it gives. Students receive instant feedback on answers to practice questions along with advice on where they could gain more marks, delivered through a bespoke conversational interface. Handwriting recognition lets students write directly on the platform using tablets or styluses, the most natural mode of learning for subjects such as Maths and Chemistry. Proprietary models for specific UK/EEA educational functions such as marking and pedagogy are in development, alongside new features designed to push the most capable students beyond regular exam curriculums and prepare them for higher education.
Among students who used the platform to prepare for their GCSE exams last summer, 74% improved by at least one grade and 41% improved by two or more, with the biggest jumps in Physics and English Literature at 46% and 43% respectively. Students preparing for an exam use Medly for an hour each day on average, and almost one million messages are exchanged daily between students and their AI tutors.
Since launching in February 2025, Medly has grown its user base by almost 600% and amassed over 400,000 users in the United Kingdom alone. In July this year it joined ElevenLabs and Pearson in being awarded the Department for Education's competitive AI Tutoring Tools Pioneers Programme grant, which focuses on improving the academic attainment of disadvantaged pupils across England. Medly was founded by UCL medicine graduates Paul Jung and Kavi Samra, who met in their first year of secondary school at age 11; both grew up in low-income households and were unable to afford private tutors during school and university, an experience that shaped the product alongside Paul's PhD in Neuropsychiatry and Kavi's time as an honorary teaching fellow at UCL Medical School.
Funding will be used to grow the community of students Medly supports in the United Kingdom and to roll out support across additional international markets. In the US, Medly has recently launched SATs with early traction and plans to expand to APs and ACTs by the end of this year. Funding will also expand the evidence base behind the platform, following a first research paper on its marking performance compared to human examiners and a completed randomised controlled trial with over one thousand UK students measuring grade attainment in lower attaining schools.
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. 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.
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!
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.
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.
