Source: VCCircle

Indonesian edtech startup CoLearn has secured $10 million of Series A funding co-led by Alpha Wave Incubation (AWI) and US based edtech investor GSV Ventures.  The round also saw participation from existing investors Sequoia Capital India’s Surge and AC Ventures.  

CoLearn launched its online platform in August 2020, during the peak of the Covid-19 pandemic and since then has scaled to reach 3.5 million students.  

CoLearn provides children in Indonesia a convenient, affordable, and high-quality alternative to traditional offline tutoring. The statement said that the company’s artificial intelligence (AI) powered platform removes many of the friction points associated with offline tutoring centers as students can master their STEM questions from the convenience of their home while saving themselves time. For students who struggle with understanding concepts taught at school, CoLearn provides access to the best teachers in the country through live interactive classes.

CoLearn was founded by Abhay Saboo, Marc Irawan and Sandeep Devaram.

“Despite having the world’s fourth largest education ecosystem with 50 million students, three million teachers and half a million schools, the quality of education in Indonesia has remained much below its real potential for several decades. The scope for motivating students and ensuring they can thrive in a globalized world is what really drives us all at CoLearn,” said Abhay Saboo, co-founder and chief executive officer, CoLearn.

“Many Indonesians are yet to see good education as a means to improve the country’s economic power. Parents here in particular have not connected those dots. Things are now slowly changing and our mission is to accelerate this by improving the quality of education,” he said.  

“GSV is thrilled to be backing CoLearn’s compelling co-founders as they look to bring high quality instruction at scale to Indonesia‘s youth. The opportunity to build efficacious learning solutions for the 4th largest country in the world is vast. The greatest businesses are created when entrepreneurs tackle large, important problems and CoLearn is doing just that,” said Deborah Quazzo, managing partner, GSV Ventures.

"We are immensely excited to partner CoLearn in its mission to disrupt the education market in Indonesia. As one of the largest markets globally, the demand for high quality tutoring solutions at a competitive price point is huge. We believe CoLearn’s stellar team is successfully implementing the online learning playbook we see in other parts of the world, to gain market leadership in Indonesia," said Anirudh Singh, managing director, AWI.

Some of CoLearn’s other investors include Leo Capital, TNB Aura, S7V, January Capital, Alpha JWC, Taurus Ventures, Alter Global, and Mahanusa Capital.

This fresh infusion of capital will help the company invest in product, technology, development, hiring, and marketing.