Indonesian edutech giant Ruangguru announced the acquisition of two edutech startups, Schoters and Kalananti, for an undisclosed sum. The two companies will complement a range of K-12 product ecosystems that is already available on the Ruangguru platform. Executives from respective companies will also continue to focus on the solutions that they have built for Ruangguru users.
“We recently acquired Kalananti and Schoters. In the past years, Ruangguru’s curriculum has been focusing heavily on [the needs of students] who are preparing to enter local public and private universities. With Schoters, we can also cater to the needs of those who are aiming to do undergraduate and postgraduate studies abroad with scholarships. Schoters is the biggest in Indonesia at the moment for this kind of service,” said Ruangguru Co-Founder and CEO Belva Devara Syah in a press conference on Monday, July 4, in Jakarta.
Executives at Schoters and Kalananti gave DailySocial their statements on different occasions. Schoters Co-Founder and CEO Radyum Ikono said that the discussion regarding the acquisition had started in November 2021, but the process was only finalised in June. Following the acquisition, there will be no significant changes in the business process for Schoters –they are even allowed to continue reaching out to potential users outside of the Ruangguru ecosystem.
Schoters solutions will be available on the Ruangguru platform, accessible by any users who might need them. “We will be part of the Ruangguru ecosystem. This is exciting as we have always been targeting high school students who intended to further their studies abroad. On one hand, Ruangguru has a pool of Indonesian high schoolers as users; as a small startup, joining them enables us to reach out to a wider array of high schoolers,” Ikono said.
Since its founding in 2018, Schoters claimed to have helped thousands of Indonesian students to study in 400 universities in 43 countries, including Cornell University, University of College London, Nanyang Technological University, and Harvard University. It has also helped hundreds of students scored scholarships with a growth number that exceeds 500 per cent in 2020-2021.
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In addition to providing college admission guidance and consultation, Schoters also provides solutions that help with foreign language skills, document preparation, and even accommodation search.
On the other hand, the acquisition process of Kalananti was finalised in March this year, enabling the two companies to accelerate their collaboration. “Our main product focuses on skills for the future, including coding. Many parents see coding as a highly relevant skill; this is why many [edutech companies] put coding on the forefront of their offerings. We are being acquired for the product itself,” said Kalananti CEO Ahmad Syahid Zakaria.
Zakaria said that, following the acquisition, he and the team will focus on developing a coding learning platform for children now that they have a more extensive resource to do it. Apart from coding, Kalananti also owns several other educational products, but they will continue on this particular product before getting back to working on the rest.
“We would like to narrow it down to a single product to mature. Prior to joining Ruangguru, we struggled with optimising the sales and marketing aspects of the product, so this is really helpful for us. This is why we are able to enter the product development stage of our flagship product, before diversifying to other products.”
Kalananti is an edutech startup that was founded in 2020. It focuses on providing coding courses and innovations for children aged 5-12 years old, exploring various future skills in a fun and exciting way.
Kalananti implements a blended learning approach that puts emphasis on concept and competence. For its ScratchJr programme, which is aimed for children aged 5-6 years old, children will be introduced to coding through creating game and animation –a process that does not require reading and writing skills. This app allows parents to help teach the basic logic with only using colours and icons.
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Feature updates on Ruangguru
Other updates that were announced at the press conference included new products and features to welcome the new school year. One of the highlights is the launch of Ruangguru for Kids, an integrated learning ecosystem to develop the academic and non-academic potentials of children since early age.
This platform provides an array of subjects and learning modes for children aged 3-12 years old, from languages, coding, writing, reading and mathematics, to online schooling. Together with Dafa Lulu, Kalananti and Alta School complement these solutions as an interactive and animated learning platforms for primary school students, combining storytelling and gamification.
The Dafa Lulu platform is now complete with a Practice Zone feature, a special section for children to learn through various educational games; Dafa Lulu Live, to facilitate live lessons with teachers using Dafa Lulu content. Apart from the launch of Ruangguru for Kids, the company also announced new features for Adapto –an daptative learning video that adjusts its plot to students’ comprehension level– called Adapto X.
Launched in 2021, Adapto X utilises simulation and interactive games to emphasise on the more practical aspects of the lessons, helping students learn more easily. The company also introduced UTBK Centre, a university entrance exam preparation platform for high school students. Everything that a student might require to prepare for university entrance exam is available on the platform, from countdown to exam day, learning strategies, practice tests, analysis of acceptance rate, to information on universities and study programmes.
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The article was written in Bahasa Indonesia by Marsya Nabila for DailySocial. English translation and editing by e27.
Image Credit: DailySocial
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