Jordanian AI founder and researcher Mohammad Alsufi has sold AI-native education platform NoNerds to JoAcademy in a deal valued at $140,000 USD, marking one of the youngest startup acquisitions in the region’s emerging AI sector
NoNerds built an AI-native education marketplace where students and instructors create and sell courses while the platform’s AI learns directly from the content itself. The system analyzes video lectures to generate flashcards, exam questions, study notes, and personalized learning journeys, while allowing students to ask questions about specific lessons through text or voice and receive answers grounded in the actual course material.
NoNerds accumulated significant traction among university students across Jordan, reaching over 120 courses, 6,000 lectures, 12,000 students, 128,000 watch hours, along with strong adoption across universities in Jordan. JoAcademy is widely recognized as the Arab region’s leading EdTech platform, serving more than 2.1 million students across Jordan, Iraq, Palestine, and Saudi Arabia, where it operates under the ULA brand. In early 2025, the company closed a $28 million Series B round led by Rua Ventures and backed by a consortium of 16 Jordanian banks.
Following the acquisition, NoNerds’ AI infrastructure will be integrated into JoAcademy’s ecosystem, supporting the company’s broader strategy to build personalized AI-powered learning experiences across the MENA region.
“AI is becoming a new cognitive layer for humanity: infrastructure that reshapes how we think, learn, build, and make decisions,” said Mohammad Alsufi. “Education was one of the first environments where we applied that thesis with NoNerds. My broader vision is building systems that extend human intelligence itself – something I’ll continue exploring through the next generation of startups and AI research I’m building,” – said Mohammad Alsufi, founder and CTO, NoNerds.
At just 19 years old, Alsufi has emerged as one of the youngest AI founders in the Middle East operating production-scale AI systems. Born and raised in Amman, Jordan, he began building online businesses at 14, initially designing websites before incorporating a Dubai-based web development company at age 16 while still in school. Alsufi also founded Brainsless, an AI research lab that develops and deploys its own models.. He is the co-founder of Planless (planless.app), a Delaware-incorporated startup platform where founders run their company alongside an AI co-founder, built around the AI architecture developed through Brainsless. Following the acquisition, Alsufi joined JoAcademy to lead AI initiatives across the platform’s expanding regional infrastructure.
The acquisition comes amid accelerating competition in the MENA EdTech sector as regional companies race to integrate generative AI into learning systems across schools and universities. Platforms across the region, including major EdTech operators in Jordan and the Gulf, have increasingly shifted toward AI-first educational models designed around personalization and adaptive learning.
