GPCA featured Indonesia-based edtech Ruangguru in the 2021 report, Emerging Tech Trends in Southeast Asia.
Founded in 2014, Ruangguru is a leading edtech platform in Indonesia, and growing quickly in Vietnam and Thailand. The firm manages virtual classroom services, online exam platforms, subscription learning videos and private tutoring marketplaces. Since launch, Ruangguru has provided access to high-quality education to 25 million students, supported by more than 600 in-house teachers and over 5,000 staff across Indonesia, Vietnam and Thailand.
Funding
In December 2019, Ruangguru raised a USD150m Series C led by General Atlantic and GGV Capital, followed by a USD55m Series C2 in April 2021 led by Tiger Global. Other investors include East Ventures, UOB Venture Management and Venturra Capital.
The Opportunity for Edtech in Indonesia
Ruangguru is a leading education technology platform in Indonesia, with strong demand for supplementary education in its main market, given Indonesia’s overall poor education standing (PISA rank #74 out of 79 countries) and fragmented access to quality education (Indonesia is an archipelagic country with ~17,500 islands). Improving access to education is a top priority for the country, with edtech standing out as a powerful solution. Ruangguru’s innovation includes online pre-recording and online & offline live tutoring for grades 1-12. Ruangguru also provides an upskilling product and training platform for businesses. The company leverages an innovative nationwide distribution model, which has positioned Ruangguru to become a leading player in multiple adjacent verticals.
Making Edtech Accessible
Ruangguru is focused on solving the challenges of accessibility, affordability and quality. More than 70% of its customers come from outside the big cities and 70% of its users have never had access to tuition funds before, according to the company. At one-tenth of the cost of traditional offline alternatives, Ruangguru’s users see an acceptance rate to state universities of 69%, 3x higher than the national average in Indonesia, and 90% of users see improvements in grades.
Navigating Growth During the Pandemic
During the pandemic, Ruangguru carried out a number of initiatives to support the education ecosystem. They launched the Ruangguru Free Online School in order to ensure continued learning following the issuance of the stay-at-home government order, with more than 10 million students in Indonesia accessing the service. For this innovation, Ruangguru was named as one of the Top 25 World’s Most Innovative Companies by Fast Company
(#2 in the Education Category), the only Indonesian company to ever be selected for the list.
Management System (LMS). This service is used by 46,000 schools across 480 districts in Indonesia. Ruangguru also provides teachers with free access to an online teacher’s library consisting of more than 250 teaching modules. More than 200,000 teachers accessed the online library. Lastly, to date Ruangguru’s scholarship program has provided thousands of scholarships to health workers’ children and children in orphanages, while partnering with telecommunication providers to grant free internet quota for students to access Ruangguru.