How two young founders built the largest education startup in Indonesia

Adamas Belva and Iman Usman were in their early 20s when they established their education-focused startup, Ruangguru. The Jakarta-based company began life as a private tutor marketplace, but the young founders soon realized the business model was hard to scale up. Undeterred, it pivoted several times before finding its sweet spot as an online learning platform for K-12 students.

Founders Iman Usman (left) and Adamas Belva / Photo credit: Ruangguru

Today, Ruangguru claims to be the largest technology-enabled education company in Southeast Asia – it’s certainly the biggest in Indonesia. Its main product is a subscription program for education videos called Ruangbelajar. It is also maintaining the private tutor marketplace, an online test platform, and corporate learning programs. The company claims to have registered more than 15 million students in Indonesia, which is around 33% of the total students in the country.

Ruangguru is now in rapid growth mode, with parents eager to pay for the service as a supplement to the education system – which can vary wildly in quality. It’s an affordable alternative to tutoring and gives more kids access to tools that can help them ace examinations.

The startup has just raised a US$150 million series C round co-led by General Atlantic and GGV Capital, to fuel its expansion, valuing it at around US$500 million. EV Growth, UOB Venture Management, and other investors also participated.

Fire in the eyes

In 2011, Belva and Usman met at a Young Leaders for Indonesia program organized by McKinsey. Two years later, both of them looked into continuing their studies in the US, so they sought private tutors to help them prepare for the necessary tests. However, the fragmented market of private tutors in the country didn’t help.

The bad experience inspired Belva to provide a solution. He asked Iman to join him as a co-founder of the new startup over a casual talk at a cafe in Jakarta. Iman accepted the invitation, and with their own savings hired the first two employees.

Both of them went to the US to take their master’s degree several months later, but they continued building the product and finally launched the beta version of the private tutor marketplace in 2014.

In the same year, they went back to Indonesia to seek out an investor. They were introduced to Willson Cuaca, managing partner of East Ventures. After a 15-minute discussion at a Starbucks cafe in Jakarta, Cuaca said yes and Ruangguru got its first external funding soon after.

But they found out that the private tutor marketplace wasn’t scalable. “In Jakarta, for example, you can find many good teachers. But if you go to smaller cities and remote areas in Indonesia, [there’s a] supply problem,” Iman once said.

So they switched paths and officially launched Ruangbelajar in January 2018. The educational video subscription was well received by the market, and that encouraged them to invest in more content and marketing.

Ruangguru decided to pivot in this board meeting / Photo credit: East Ventures

Ruangguru raised more money, securing series A funding led by Venturra Capital in 2015 and series B funding led by UOB Venture management two years after that.

Focus on unit economics

Expansion to Vietnam