One of the largest education technology company in Southeast Asia, based out of Indonesia, Ruanggaru raised US$55 million this week in new funding, led by Tiger Global Management after claims of a profitable 2020.
Doing its bit during the pandemic, Ruangguru initiated numerous social initiatives to bring impact in education. After the government imposed a stay-at-home order, Ruangguru launched a Ruangguru Free Online School to ensure no stopping to learning. Approximately more than 10 million students in Indonesia access this service. Additionally, Ruangguru offered complimentary access to Ruangkelas, a Learning Management System (LMS) to support distance learning. It is used by thousands of schools across 480 districts of Indonesia. Teachers have free access to the online library, which consists of over 250 teaching modules. The company claims that over 200,000 teachers have accessed the online library. The platform also offered scholarships for thousands of children of healthcare workers and children in orphanages while partnering with telecommunications providers to provide a free Internet quota for students to access Ruangguru. In the recent past, Ruangguru was ranked two among the Top 25 World’s Most Innovative Company by Fast Company, the only Indonesian company ever to be selected list, for its innovative approach of bringing free online school during the Covid-19 lockdowns.
With over 22 million users across Indonesia, Vietnam and Thailand, Ruangguru helps users learn concepts through its online platform, which provides numerous technology-based education services, such as subscription-based video, learning management system for schools, live teaching, online soft skills training, and corporate-based training application. The company says it has over 15,000 students, manages 300,000 teachers and works closely with the Indonesian government.
Ruangguru’s achievements in 2020 include the following:
- Expansion in Thailand by launching StartDee in 2020, following KienGuru’s launch in Vietnam in the year 2019. Ruangguru’s flagship products boasted the biggest downloads among the K-12 educational apps in the respective countries.
- Maintain a leadership position (in subscriber count) in the Live Tutoring segment through Brain Academy and the Ruangbelajar+ product.
- Launch of Roboguru, an AI-based homework solver with photo research and user-generated content technology to help students understand challenging exercises.
- Launched the English Academy in January 2021, an affordable online classroom with the Cambridge curriculum to serve students and adults from kindergarten to grade 12.
- Serve over 3 million users for Skill Academy, Ruangguru’s continuous learning product only one year after it was launched. Skill Academy emerged as the market leader in the class and won Google Play Best in 2020 for personal growth.
The company’s new funding follows its US$150 million series C funding round in 2019 led by General Atlantic and GGV Capital. East Ventures, Venturra Capital and UOB Venture Management were the company’s previous investors.
Ruangguru plans to use the new capital to accelerate its business expansion into Indonesia, Vietnam and Thailand in the K-12 and Lifelong Learning segments.
Evan Feinberg, the Partner, Tiger Global Management, said, “as Southeast Asia’s leading provider of quality online education, Ruangguru is poised to transform further and improve the landscape for K-12 and adult learning. We are excited to partner with them as they continue to innovate solutions for this market and advance high-quality education for learners of all ages.“
Jixun Foo, the Managing Partner at GGV Capital, stated, “Our continued investments in Ruangguru is a testament of our confidence in their commitment to advance quality education for all. Since the previous Series C round, we have witnessed Ruangguru’s unwavering commitment to education, especially during the trying times of the COVID-19. We will continue to support companies that are bringing a lasting impact to our future through education technology.” Edtech is a key global investment thesis for GGV with portfolio companies such as Zuoyebang, Vedantu, and HuoHua.
“We are excited to partner with Tiger Global and have the continuing support of GGV Capital, both renowned global firms with investments in some of the best education technology companies globally. We share the same vision of a world with access to quality education for all. Ruangguru has continued to experience a strong growth trajectory in the past year, and this investment will help us further expand our business and deliver meaningful impact in education through technology,” said Belva Devara, Co-founder and Chief Executive Officer of Ruangguru.
Additionally, Iman Usman, Co-founder and Chief Product and Partnership Officer of Ruangguru, cited, “Ruangguru now has strong investors with education industry expertise. We plan to leverage their expertise and network to improve our products and our team further. This will help us to provide a world-class offering of education products leveraging technology to our students and workforce in the region to make them globally competitive. We will continue to fulfil our mission to enable better access to quality education to millions of learners in Southeast Asia.“
