Indonesia-based edtech startup Zenius on Tuesday announced that it closed a pre-Series B funding round for an undisclosed amount. In the round, new investors Alpha JWC Ventures and Openspace Ventures joined existing investors such as Northstar, Kinesys, and BeeNext who had injected money in Zenius’ Series A round in February 2020.
Zenius plans to use the new funds to further develop its platform to meet rapidly growing customer demand. CEO Rohan Monga said that this year alone the platform has released new features like the AI-powered “Automated Doubt-Solving” tool available on Zenius’ app or via WhatsApp.
“The system recommends related concept videos and practice questions to explain the thinking behind the solution, allowing students to actively apply them in the given set of practice questions,” Monga said in a statement.
The firm also launched a free learning management system for teachers named “Zenius untuk Guru” (Zenius for Teachers), which has been used by over 6,000 teachers in Indonesia. In April, the company partnered with Gojek to provide free lessons on the super app. The partnership aimed to reach millions of Gojek users, especially students, including the children of the driver-partners and merchants. Prior to joining Zenius, Monga was a senior executive at Gojek.
Despite offering most of its services for free during the first half of 2020, Zenius saw its revenues increase over 70% in the second half of the year compared to the same period in 2019. Its live-class segment grew its user numbers tenfold since its launch in March 2020, with a retention rate of over 90%. Live classes now represent nearly 50% of Zenius’ revenue. The platform also claimed to have the largest education content library in Indonesia with over 90,000 videos for elementary to high-school students. Zenius is facing competition from Ruangguru, which offers similar services.
A joint report by Google, Temasek, and Bain found that edtech and healthtech are the new frontiers of Southeast Asia’s digital economy, as they played crucial roles during lockdown across the region. As more users are adopting the method, edtech platforms will come up with new innovations, such as gamification or interactive multimedia content. The report also expects the sector to achieve more funding, and the arrival of new players.