Luca, an AI-powered learning platform for primary and secondary schools, has raised an $8 million Series A round to accelerate its expansion and advance its long-term goal of becoming a global leader, with plans to establish a tech hub in Portugal.
The round, according to the company, was led by 6 Degrees Capital and joined by Explorer, with continued support from early investors Heartcore Capital and Shilling VC. The “highly oversubscribed” round brings Luca’s total funding to more than $13 million.
Although Luca currently focuses on the K-12 market in Latin America, its roadmap includes the United States and Europe.
In comments to Portugal Startup News, founder and CEO Frederico Bello confirmed that the company has already made its first hire in Portugal as part of its plan to build a tech hub in the country as it scales.
A Portuguese entrepreneur, Frederico began his career in banking at Morgan Stanley, before moving into senior operating roles at Uber and ThePowerMBA, a successful European edtech company.
This experience, as reported by 6 Degrees Capital, inspired him to start Luca in 2020. He studied educational systems globally before choosing Mexico as the optimal market to launch, where the company’s operations, team, and client base are located.
The team, now around 30 people, combines deep operational experience, domain expertise, and technical capability.
Two new board members, according to a report by ECO, are joining as part of the round: Juan Romero, former CEO of Pearson LatAm and current CEO of ISP LatAm, and Vasco Pedro, co-founder and former CEO of Unbabel who now leads Spinnable.
The company also added angel investors from Viva Real, ThePowerMBA, Kroton, Ironhack, and Cobee.
A platform built for day-to-day classroom use
Luca combines curriculum-level depth with AI-driven personalization. The system digitizes the national curriculum and automatically generates a wide range of educational content, including text, slides, videos, games, exercises, and tests. The content is interactive, and the platform adapts to each student’s pace and proficiency.
For teachers, the platform automates lesson planning, grading, performance reviews, and administrative tasks. By reducing that workload, Luca aims to give teachers more time to focus on instruction and student support.
Recognizing that many schools still rely on traditional textbooks, Luca offers both digital content and printed materials, allowing institutions to modernize gradually without disrupting established practices.
Strong growth in Latin America
According to 6 Degrees Capital, 2025 was a breakout year for the company. Luca tripled its school count and now serves tens of thousands of students. Annualized revenues increased four-fold, placing it in the top decile of Series A SaaS companies.
The company reached cashflow positivity last year and achieved this growth with minimal sales effort, combining strong outbound execution with rising inbound demand.
Usage metrics also illustrate how embedded the platform has become. Last year, 94% of teachers with access to the platform used it regularly, up from 75% in its first year. Assignment creation increased 3.5 times, and students and teachers now log more than 50 interactions per week.
Luca’s initial focus is the Spanish-speaking K-12 education system in Latin America, beginning with Mexico.
The company first targets private schools, which have larger budgets and faster decision cycles, and public schools remain a future priority that could more than double its revenue potential.
Because curricula across Latin America share strong similarities, the platform can expand efficiently into other countries without rebuilding content.
A global trend toward AI-assisted learning
Bello told Portugal Startup News that it is an “exciting time” to be building in education, highlighting both the pace of the sector and Luca’s position within it.
“We are a generational company that will change the world and the way people learn. The round was done in under three months, on the back of extraordinary growth, and the momentum keeps on building,” he noted.
Luca’s momentum reflects broader global trends in digital education. The education technology market has expanded rapidly, growing from $169.2 billion in 2024 to an estimated $200.86 billion in 2025 at a compound annual growth rate of 18.7%.
This growth is driven by rising adoption of digital devices, the spread of e-learning platforms, government initiatives supporting digital education, demand for personalized learning, cloud-based delivery, mobile learning, and the shift toward remote and hybrid models.
AI has become a central factor in this expansion, powering the next generation of adaptive learning tools, automated assessment systems, and classroom-support technologies.
Featured image: Founder and CEO Frederico Bello (left) with the Luca team (Photo courtesy of Luca)
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