The edtech landscape has reached a strange crossroads. There are now 280M+ higher-education students globally, and the majority are already experimenting with AI as a learning aid. But the systems meant to support them – LMS platforms, study tools, and institutional software – haven’t evolved at the same pace. They are generic, disconnected from actual syllabi, and often leave students more confused than when they started. That gap is what drew us to Eightball AI.
GTMfund is thrilled to announce our lead investment in Eightball AI’s $1.2M Pre-Seed round, alongside notable angel investor James Beshara (Gusto, Mercury, Clubhouse) and advisor Dennis Yang (ex-CEO of Udemy, co-founder of Modal).
Eightball AI is a native-AI learning platform designed to integrate directly into a student’s academic life. By grounding AI in the materials that matter (lectures, slides, textbooks, and syllabi), Eightball AI transforms the “black box” of generic AI into a personalized academic system that understands context, coursework, and progression.
Eightball AI is solving the "data gap" in EdTech. While legacy players focus on generic data (like "what is photosynthesis?"), Eightball AI captures the temporal, university-level context that actually matters to a student's GPA. They are focusing upon three places:
1. Native LMS integration (the knowledge map)
Eightball AI plugs directly into Canvas (which owns 50% of the US market). In one click, students sync their entire academic world – assignments, rubrics, and files. This "Knowledge Map" ensures every AI answer is grounded in their specific professor’s teachings.
2. The "in-class" experience
A standout feature is Eightball AI’s transcription engine. Students can turn it on during a live lecture and the AI transcribes the session, takes notes, and immediately links those notes to existing course files. If a student is confused mid-lecture, they can ask Eightball AI to explain the current slide in real-time.
3. Full-cycle mastery
Eightball AI takes students from "zero to mastery" through four distinct modules:
Why We Invested:
Our conviction in Eightball AI centered around two factors: (1) our belief that a product like this will exist and change education forever; and (2) our belief in Karam as a young, special founder.
While previous generations of EdTech (Canvas, Coursera, Chegg) focused on digital delivery, AI is fundamentally disrupting these categories today. Eightball AI provides a personalized learning layer – offering unlimited study material generation, lecture synthesis, and 24/7 AI tutoring. Industry veterans, including the former CEO of Udemy (who is an advisor to Karam), agree: education is shifting toward this accessible, individualized model. Within the next few years, we expect an AI study partner like Eightball AI to be in every student’s hands globally. Within a decade, we expect to see the first AI-native university.
Every so often, we meet a founder whose journey is so deeply intertwined with the problem that their success feels inevitable. Karam Khanna, the founder of Eightball AI, is that founder. While a student at Emory University, Karam built the first version of Eightball AI to solve his own struggles with asymmetric learning. The product was so effective it won a $10,000 university prize, and $150,000 in cash and credits from a Microsoft event.
Then came the backlash. In a moment that drew national attention from The Washington Post and Fortune, Emory’s honor council – operating under the assumption that AI was inherently “unethical” – voted to expel him because of the product’s widespread growth. Karam didn’t back down. He challenged the decision in federal court, mobilized alumni support, and ultimately won.
Karam was tweeted about by a16z’s Speedrun by Andrew Chen himself. He was offered a 7-figure acquisition by one of the biggest edtech companies in the space. It would have made him a millionaire at 22–he declined. This is an ambitious, young, and remarkably talented entrepreneur. We’re excited to be on this journey with Karam.
Eightball AI is already seeing incredible momentum. With a growing paid user base and tremendous week-over-week growth, the platform is maintaining a strong 89% retention rate.
Joining the mission alongside GTMfund is an elite group of advisors, including Dennis Yang (Former CEO of Udemy). As the 8th employee at Udemy, GP Max Altschuler knows what kind of significance it means that Dennis is getting involved.
As we look toward the 2026 academic year, Eightball AI is preparing to launch pilots directly with several major universities, shifting the narrative from "AI vs. Education" to "AI for Education."
The edtech landscape has reached a strange crossroads. There are now 280M+ higher-education students globally, and the majority are already experimenting with AI as a learning aid. But the systems meant to support them – LMS platforms, study tools, and institutional software – haven’t evolved at the same pace. They are generic, disconnected from actual syllabi, and often leave students more confused than when they started. That gap is what drew us to Eightball AI.
GTMfund is thrilled to announce our lead investment in Eightball AI’s $1.2M Pre-Seed round, alongside notable angel investor James Beshara (Gusto, Mercury, Clubhouse) and advisor Dennis Yang (ex-CEO of Udemy, co-founder of Modal).
Eightball AI is a native-AI learning platform designed to integrate directly into a student’s academic life. By grounding AI in the materials that matter (lectures, slides, textbooks, and syllabi), Eightball AI transforms the “black box” of generic AI into a personalized academic system that understands context, coursework, and progression.
Eightball AI is solving the "data gap" in EdTech. While legacy players focus on generic data (like "what is photosynthesis?"), Eightball AI captures the temporal, university-level context that actually matters to a student's GPA. They are focusing upon three places:
1. Native LMS integration (the knowledge map)
Eightball AI plugs directly into Canvas (which owns 50% of the US market). In one click, students sync their entire academic world – assignments, rubrics, and files. This "Knowledge Map" ensures every AI answer is grounded in their specific professor’s teachings.
2. The "in-class" experience
A standout feature is Eightball AI’s transcription engine. Students can turn it on during a live lecture and the AI transcribes the session, takes notes, and immediately links those notes to existing course files. If a student is confused mid-lecture, they can ask Eightball AI to explain the current slide in real-time.
3. Full-cycle mastery
Eightball AI takes students from "zero to mastery" through four distinct modules:
Why We Invested:
Our conviction in Eightball AI centered around two factors: (1) our belief that a product like this will exist and change education forever; and (2) our belief in Karam as a young, special founder.
While previous generations of EdTech (Canvas, Coursera, Chegg) focused on digital delivery, AI is fundamentally disrupting these categories today. Eightball AI provides a personalized learning layer – offering unlimited study material generation, lecture synthesis, and 24/7 AI tutoring. Industry veterans, including the former CEO of Udemy (who is an advisor to Karam), agree: education is shifting toward this accessible, individualized model. Within the next few years, we expect an AI study partner like Eightball AI to be in every student’s hands globally. Within a decade, we expect to see the first AI-native university.
Every so often, we meet a founder whose journey is so deeply intertwined with the problem that their success feels inevitable. Karam Khanna, the founder of Eightball AI, is that founder. While a student at Emory University, Karam built the first version of Eightball AI to solve his own struggles with asymmetric learning. The product was so effective it won a $10,000 university prize, and $150,000 in cash and credits from a Microsoft event.
Then came the backlash. In a moment that drew national attention from The Washington Post and Fortune, Emory’s honor council – operating under the assumption that AI was inherently “unethical” – voted to expel him because of the product’s widespread growth. Karam didn’t back down. He challenged the decision in federal court, mobilized alumni support, and ultimately won.
Karam was tweeted about by a16z’s Speedrun by Andrew Chen himself. He was offered a 7-figure acquisition by one of the biggest edtech companies in the space. It would have made him a millionaire at 22–he declined. This is an ambitious, young, and remarkably talented entrepreneur. We’re excited to be on this journey with Karam.
Eightball AI is already seeing incredible momentum. With a growing paid user base and tremendous week-over-week growth, the platform is maintaining a strong 89% retention rate.
Joining the mission alongside GTMfund is an elite group of advisors, including Dennis Yang (Former CEO of Udemy). As the 8th employee at Udemy, GP Max Altschuler knows what kind of significance it means that Dennis is getting involved.
As we look toward the 2026 academic year, Eightball AI is preparing to launch pilots directly with several major universities, shifting the narrative from "AI vs. Education" to "AI for Education."
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