Zenius Announces Pre-Series B Funding; Revenue Increases Supported by “Live Class” Services

Startups EdTech Zenius today (05/1) announced that it has secured a pre-series B funding round for an undisclosed amount. Alpha JWC Ventures and Openspace Ventures entered the ranks of new investors, previous investors namely Northstar, Kinesys, and BeeNext also took part in this round.

Funds will be focused on platform development, amid growing market demand. Previously Zenius officially announced series A pendanaan funding in February 2020 for $20 million.

Also conveyed, throughout 2020 the learning platform online it claims strong growth. In fact, revenue per second semester last year increased by 70% compared to the same period in 2019. Zenius had freed up most of the learning content during the first half of 2020, to support learning from home initiatives in the midst of the Covid-19 pandemic.

In June 2020, in conjunction with rebranding and app updates, Zenius begins to adopt a business model freemium. Nearly 50% of Zenius' revenue sources come from the Live Class feature. Since its launch in March 2020, the number of users is claimed to have increased 10 times with a retention rate of 90%.

Currently, the classes at Zenius receive an average of rating 4,9 (out of 5), with an attendance of 400 students, and broke the record with 10 thousand users in one 60-minute math session.

Based on SimilarWeb data, the average Zenius.net site gets 3-4 million visits every month. On the Android platform, the application has been downloaded by more than one million users.

“We recently launched the Automated Doubt-Solving feature through our app and WhatsApp. This feature will provide students with a solution by simply using the camera on their cell phone. The system will then recommend videos and practice questions to explain the process behind the solution and allow students to actively apply them in a given set of practice questions. This will create a more immersive learning experience that contributes to students' critical thinking and ability to solve difficult problems and future concepts,” said Zenius CEO Rohan Monga.

"For more than a decade, they have demonstrated a track record of demonstrating proven learning outcomes and reinventing core businessalong with the emergence of new mediums. We believe that track record will be a key differentiating factor in the rapidly evolving education landscape, and we hope this new round of funding will propel Zenius' growth even further," said Openspace Ventures Director Ian Sikora.

Edtech in Indonesia

According to the data summarized in Edtech Report 2020 by DSResearch, there are currently several educational startup business models that are growing rapidly in Southeast Asia. Zenius itself is in the “Learner Support, Tutoring, & Test Preparation” category with several other players – including those from/already operating in Indonesia such as Ruangguru, Pahamify, and CoLearn.

Since 2012, slowly but surely, various types of services EdTech continues to emerge in Indonesia. Referring to the report above, there are currently dozens of startups EdTech local areas that are still operating – of course each has value proposition different. The market share is indeed very large, say for players like Zenius or Ruangguru targeting K-12 students (elementary-high school level), every year there are more than 50 million students spread throughout Indonesia.

This potential has made several foreign players flock to expand to Indonesia. As of 2020, there are at least 6 foreign players who have succeeded in establishing a business base in Indonesia – including having a representative office and a local team.

Happen EdTech The local area continues to grow, not only serving students, various startups EdTech also began targeting professionals and business customers. Several new models have also been born in recent years, one of which is related fintech focusing on education loans.