Startups to Watch: Aneta Ed

Editor’s note: This is one of our Startups to Watch of 2022. See the rest here.

In 2020, Afua “B.B.” Branoah Banful had just hoped to make life a little easier for fellow working parents who had kids in virtual school through the Covid-19 pandemic.

She ended up building a whole new business in AnetaEd.com Inc.

The company’s platform helps kids safely navigate the internet with digital wayfinding, a cartoon map that guides the user through a route — schoolwork, games or other websites — predetermined by an adult. And after rolling out the product in September and raising $280,000 from friends and family, the consultant-turned-entrepreneur is now revamping the company’s website, refining its branding to parents and teachers, and getting her pitch deck ready for what she hopes will be a $1 million funding round in the second quarter of 2022.

That funding would enable Aneta to do a few things: get the word out about her startup and hire two employees, one in marketing and sales to identify partnerships and another with a tech background to improve the platform. Banful is already working with educators to create a library of Anetapacks, or “digital journeys” that parents can share with their children. That’s in addition to a plan to launch more mobile apps, with some already available via Google Play.

Banful came from Ghana to the U.S. at age 19 to attend the Massachusetts Institute of Technology, where she earned two bachelor’s degrees in economics and materials science engineering. She spent another five years at Harvard University for her doctorate in economics before moving to the D.C. area for her postdoctoral work. She held positions at McKinsey and Co. and The Advisory Board Co. before branching out in 2018 to start her first firm, Sound Health Advisory LLC, a consultancy that she still runs today and whose revenue helps fund Aneta Ed.

A closer look