Geniebook secured US $16.6 M Series A funding backed by East Ventures, Lightspeed & top executives from Southeast Asia’s unicorns
Geniebook, a Singapore-based edtech company, has raised $16.6 million in a Series A funding round headed by East Ventures and Lightspeed Venture Partners.
John Danner of Dunce Capital, Gaurav Munjal and Roman Saini of Unacademy, Kunal Bahl and Rohit Bansal of Snapdeal, and other top executives from Southeast Asia’s unicorns such as Grab, Shopee, and Gojek were among those who participated in the round.
Geniebook plans to expand its 350-person worldwide workforce with targeted additions in the curriculum, engineering, product, and growth teams, thanks to the additional funding.
The money will also be utilised to improve existing products such as GenieSmart’s AI-personalized worksheets, GenieClass’s live online lessons, and GenieAsk’s real-time instructor chat.
Geniebook, founded in 2017 by Neo Zhizhong and Alicia Cheong, uses AI and machine learning to help students improve their academic performance by providing individualised experiences on its platform.
“More than ever today, with online pedagogy becoming essential, we must greatly enhance the digital experience to accelerate students’ learning,” said CEO Zhizhong.
Self-directed and social learning approaches are used by Geniebook to enhance home-based learning advances.
According to a press release, Geniebook has grown by 2,000 percent since the beginning of 2019, with over 150,000 users throughout Southeast Asia. Since its entry into Vietnam earlier this year, its income has grown threefold.
Apart from Singapore, Geniebook has made inroads into Vietnam, Indonesia, and Malaysia.
Because of a strong financial year in 2020, the business promises to be profitable and cash flow positive.
“As we enter the second year of the pandemic, when schools and students have to seek online arrangements, edutech companies are playing an important role and have accelerated their delivery of solutions to users,” said Roderick Purwana, managing partner at East Ventures.
GenieBook had secured US $1.1 million in a pre-Series A financing sponsored by Apricot Capital, a Singapore-based diversified multi-asset private investment firm, prior to this transaction.
According to Research and Markets, global edutech revenues will reach US$40.9 billion (S$56.3 billion) by 2022, with Asia Pacific accounting for more than half of global demand.
