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Funzi started as a lean startup with a bold ambition, bringing quality digital learning to markets that the EdTech industry had largely overlooked. What began as a small operation serving a niche has grown into a platform reaching hundreds of thousands of users every month across Africa and Asia.
That kind of growth doesn't happen by accident, it takes the right product decisions at the right time. Funzi needed to rebuild their entire product from scratch: new architecture, new business model, new market. No in-house dev team. Tight timeline. Users in Africa and Asia on decade-old phones with spotty internet.
A legacy web app that couldn't carry the weight of a new business model. A pivot from B2C to B2B - and no engineering team to make it happen.
Funzi's platform serves adult learners and students across the developing world. Their users aren't on the latest devices. They're on old feature phones, in regions where the internet drops without warning. Most vendors would have treated that as a limitation. Bild treated it as the brief.
Discovery is less about asking what you want, it's about uncovering what you need. Before a single line of code was written, Bild asked the right questions. That rigour is what convinced Funzi's CTO to choose Bild over every other vendor he evaluated. Not a pitch deck. Not a portfolio. The questions.
From there, Bild took full ownership: Research & Discovery, system architecture, DevOps, web development, QA, and project management, a complete rebuild, engineered for the real world:
No JavaScript? No problem. Using Next.js with static page generation, Bild built a platform that runs on old feature phones - no JavaScript required. For devices that support it, progressive enhancement kicks in automatically.
Offline by design. Progressive Web App (PWA) technology was implemented so learners could keep learning even when connectivity dropped. Because in the markets Funzi serves, the internet doesn't always show up.
Seamless partner onboarding. Funzi's model depends on partnerships with universities and learning platforms across multiple markets. Bild built a custom authentication layer using Google Identity Platform, so every partner integration is smooth, and every learner lands where they need to be.
"Bild Studio has been an integral part of our team for a long time. Our close collaboration made it possible for us to navigate quickly together on the stormy waters of the startup world. What is great about working with Bild is that the team takes ownership over the issues. They are not only taking development tickets under work - through close collaboration and ownership, we find the best possible solutions together."
The product is live. The users are scaling. Funzi continues to expand its reach across Africa and Asia, growing a platform built to serve learners that most vendors wouldn't even design for.
Enterprises transform with confidence. Startups scale with resilience. Funzi is proof of both.
If your product is carrying the weight of yesterday's architecture and your next chapter demands more - let's talk.
