<a href="https://edfundo.com/" target="_blank">Edfundo</a>, a Dubai-based money management app aimed at the youth, plans to raise $1.5 million in a seed funding round. The proceeds will be used to hire key workforce and grow its business in the UAE and the wider Middle East and North Africa region. The teacher-curated <a href="https://www.thenationalnews.com/business/start-ups/" target="_blank">start-up</a>, which is scheduled to launch in the new year, aims to close the seed funding round in the first quarter of 2022. This follows the closing of an initial round, which raised $400,000 from members of the region’s education community, Edfundo said on Monday. "This is a really strong strategic funding round poised to catapult Edfundo to market. We have brought on board teachers, educators and academic advisers who have not just invested financially but also strategically as they strongly believe in our vision and mission," Simon Wing, co-founder and chief executive of Edfundo, said. Money management apps are surging in popularity following the Covid-19 pandemic, which laid bare the lack of financial literacy, particularly among the youth. Forty-three per cent of respondents polled in the UAE aged between 16 and 24 said <a href="https://www.thenationalnews.com/business/money/2021/08/01/generation-start-up-new-app-empowers-youth-to-take-control-of-their-financial-futures/" target="_blank">they were not ready to manage</a> their own money, while 53 per cent said schools did not prepare them to take care of their finances, according to a 2019 <a href="https://www.thenationalnews.com/business/money/teach-your-teenager-how-to-save-and-budget-1.936529">survey</a> by Visa. The Edfundo app was designed to promote financial literacy and enable smart money management among the digitally active children and youth. Edfundo also allows parents to set spending limits and rules, make automatic allowance payments and transfer money in real-time, and is a "safe spending solution ... to encourage financial literacy”, said Andrew Toward, co-founder and chief operating officer at Edfundo. Testing of the app is set to take place over the coming month with input from some of the 1,000-strong user base that have subscribed for the product. The list is expected to grow in the coming weeks, Mr Wing said. Overall, funding to Mena start-ups <a href="https://www.thenationalnews.com/business/2021/07/13/funding-to-mena-start-ups-rises-64-to-12bn-in-first-half-of-2021/">rose 64 per cent to $1.2bn</a> in the first half of 2021, with food and beverage, FinTech and e-commerce companies attracting record investment from venture capital firms, data platform Magnitt said.