Bootstrapped ID firm makes millions defying edtech slump

Siau Wei, a fifth-semester student at Widya Mandala Catholic University in Surabaya, Indonesia, wasn’t a fan of the institution’s outdated student portal.

“The website was very slow to load. And we used it for everything, from checking class schedules to announcements,” he recalls.

But that all changed earlier this year when Widya Mandala rolled out a revamped academic portal, thanks to Surabaya-based edtech firm Sevima.

Sevima is a well-known name among higher-education institutions in Indonesia. It works with more than 1,200 universities, which account for over a quarter of the country’s 4,400 active universities.

Despite this, Sevima has flown under the radar in tech circles. Not only is it headquartered almost 800 kilometers away from Jakarta, the epicenter of Indonesia’s tech industry, but the company is also entirely bootstrapped, according to founder and CEO Sugianto Halim.

CEO Sugianto Halim (third from right) and CMO Andry Huzain (second from right) / Photo credit: Sevima

While Halim did not disclose Sevima’s numbers to Tech in Asia, an investor active in the local edtech space estimates the firm’s 2023 revenue at around US$7 million. 

The company also claims to have been net profitable since day one – a rare achievement, considering the hurdles faced by Southeast Asian edtech firms since Covid-19 wound down.

Highly regulated sector

Sevima offers cloud-based solutions for universities, primarily those in the middle and lower tiers, says Halim.

“These universities often have limited capacity in developing their own digital infrastructure,” the CEO explains. It’s a contrast to top-tier institutions, which often have their own data centers.

The firm’s most popular offering is an academic management system that helps manage admin processes like course registration, grade tracking, and student records.

Sevima also provides a payment service, which lets students pay their tuition fees through channels like Tokopedia and Shopee. Another popular solution offered by the company automates universities’ data reporting to the government’s centralized database. 

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Sevima charges a monthly subscription fee to its customers. It has several pricing tiers ranging from 9 million rupiah (US$584) to 40 million rupiah (US$2,596) per month.

“Boring business is good business”