CIRA Education’s global investment arm CIRA Global Ventures acquired a minority stake in the American K-12 private school platform Falcon Academy, according to a joint statement (pdf). The move marks the first strategic North American expansion undertaken by an Egyptian education group.

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Falcon Academy? The platform was recently established to serve Arab and Asian diaspora communities in the Washington, DC and Northern Virginia areas, as well as students from other backgrounds. The school was “founded on the principles of academic excellence, Middle Eastern values and ethics, Arabic proficiency, and cultural grounding” and will “address the substantial unmet demand for high-quality, culturally grounded education,” according to the statement.

CIRA Global Ventures thinks this may be the start of something much bigger, with the statement describing its exclusive K-12 partnership with Falcon Academy in the US as the “cornerstone of a long-term strategy to serve underserved education segments and replicate successful models at scale.”

The acquisition will be done via a capital increase, which will be used to expand Falcon Academy, open up high school admissions, and help develop a “purpose-built, state-of-the-art campus, designed to deliver advanced STEM education and next-generation learning environments.”

What they said: “This move follows more than three years of in-depth analysis of the North American education sector, guided by a clear objective to identify scalable growth opportunities in one of the world’s largest and most competitive markets. We see in Falcon Academy not just a school, but a scalable education platform with deep community roots and strong growth potential,” said CIRA Education CEO Mohamed Kalla.

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