Heaptalk, Jakarta – Educational startup Zenius received Pre-Series B funding, although an undisclosed amount. This time the injection of funds came from new investors such as Alpha JWC Ventures and Openspace Ventures.
They are joined by Northstar, Kinesys, and BeeNext, who have supported Zenius through Series A funding in February 2020. Zenius founders’ plans to use the funds to develop the platform to meet the growing market demand.
Openspace Ventures director Ian Sikora said, Zenius is one of the most promising educational technology companies. For more than a decade, they have shown a track record of showing proven learning outcomes and reinventing their core business as new mediums emerge.
“We believe this track record will be a major differentiating factor in the rapidly developing educational landscape, and we hope that this new round of funding will further boost Zenius’ growth,” Ian said in an official statement, Tuesday (5/1).
Partner & Investment at Alpha JWC Ventures Eko Kurniadi said the impact that Zenius has on thousands of Indonesian students is truly unique. Zenius gets students admitted to the university of their dreams and teaches real thinking skills.
“We share this vision with Zenius, and we believe that together, we will be able to change more lives for the better and create a more developed country,” he said.
Throughout 2020, Zenius showed strong growth. The company’s revenue grew by more than 70% in the second half of 2020 compared to the same period in 2019.
Zenius is considered the market leader in the live class segment, with more than 10 times the number of users from its launch in March 2020 to December 2020 and a user retention rate of over 90%.
Nearly 50% of his income currently comes from the live class segment. Currently, classes at Zenius receive an average rating of 4.9 out of 5, with an average attendance of 400 students, and breaking records with 10,000 users in one 60-minute math session.
The last six-month pace
In August 2020, Zenius released an internal survey that showed that more than 15,000 users passed the national university entrance exam (UTBK). In general, Zenius alumni have been accepted at 85 state universities and eight polytechnics, both at home and abroad.
“In line with our goal of bringing the competencies of Indonesia’s Program for International Student Assessment (PISA) to a global level, we are working around the clock to develop new features that will help students get the best learning outcomes through our technology,” said CEO Zenius Rohan Monga.
Recently, Zenius launched the Automated Doubt-Solving feature through our application and WhatsApp. This feature will provide a solution to students using only the camera on their cell phone. The system will then recommend a video and practice questions to explain the solution’s process and allow students to apply it in a given set of practice questions actively.
“This will create a deeper learning experience that contributes to students’ critical thinking and the ability to solve difficult problems and future concepts,” he said.
Collaborate with Telkomsel
Zenius immediately stepped on the gas by cooperating with Telkomsel to hold a competition entitled “Ilmupedia dares to answer”. Since the end of the 4th quarter of 2020, the program has been running and is still receiving registration until January 10, 2021.
This competition will involve high school students and equivalent throughout Indonesia, from 3,500 schools. While the total prize pool is prepared for more than IDR 400 million. Participants can register via the competition’s official website or via the Zenius app.
“Zenius believes that the learning process must be fun so that students are motivated to learn new things and be able to apply what they learn thoroughly,” said CEO of Zenius Education, Rohan Monga, in the official statement received.
VP Prepaid Consumer Telkomsel Adhi Putranto said that his party will indeed continue to collaborate with various parties who have similarities in realizing the future of Indonesian education more advanced as a digital telecommunications company.
“Telkomsel is very pleased with the collaboration with Zenius, which has so far been well received and delivers tangible results that can bring technology benefits to many students in Indonesia,” said Adhi.
Previously, Telkomsel and Zenius had also completed a series of collaborations for students in Indonesia, such as Ilmupedia and Zenius-Telkomsel Scholarship Test. The two companies also believe that the collaboration between technology-based education access providers and telecommunication providers can present a quality education scheme for many students in Indonesia.
