JAKARTA, Indonesia, Dec. 10, 2021 /PRNewswire/ -- Cakap, one of the biggest Edtech platforms in Indonesia, has raised US$10m in an oversubscribed series B round to expand their certified course offering, as well as to fuel its market expansion in providing better access to high quality education in Indonesia. The round was jointly led by MDI Ventures' Centauri Fund and Heritas Capital, with participation from KB Investment and other undisclosed investors. The series B round wraps up the achievement of the company for the strong year by attaining its impressive growth through the profitability and role in supporting remote learning as a solution to minimize the negative impact of the pandemic in the country.
Cakap Secures US$10m in Series B Funding Co-lead by MDI-KB's Centauri and Heritas Capital to Expand More Access for High Quality Education
The respective investors will create added value to the company with the synergy from the biggest Telco provider, Telkom, to accelerate market expansion nationwide. Accompanied by Heritas Capital, this will expand the company's social impact practices. In addition, KB Investment, part of KB Financial Group as a leading financial services provider from Korea, with its 20 years of investment experience will also support Cakap's growth strategy.
Cakap as a profitable Edtech company for the last 2 years has successfully built a strong credibility and secured impressive growth by acquiring 1.5 Million students, with 500% YoY growth in Active Students and more than 1 Million Apps download. Rated 4.9 out of 5 on Google Play Store, Cakap is the highest rated educational app in the country.
Tomy Yunus, Co-Founder & CEO of Cakap, stated, "We are proud and excited to be part of the massive education transformation in Indonesia, where we combine high quality learning content, advanced technology, and professional teachers in our ecosystem to deliver the best learning experience to our students. Therefore, to support our mission in elevating people's lives, we are consistently learning our students' unique behavior and enhancing our solution by developing our engine around AI and Machine Learning to provide localized and personalized learning in accelerating students' learning progress."
Cakap has been leading the online language courses for Adults and Kids segments in Indonesia. Running a tech platform enables Cakap to offer their service subscription at a much more affordable price than a typical brick and mortar tutoring service while giving their adults and kids students a wide selection of professional teachers both locally and internationally. Cakap also expanded their offering into self-paced learning and certification courses that combine sequential multimedia learning, assessments, and LIVE Class ad discussions, giving their students much flexibility to complete a certification for new job-specific skills.
The proceeds will further propel the tremendous momentum that the company has been enjoying and that has been empowering more than 1,000 teachers across the regions. With this new funding, Cakap aims to improve their learning technology by exploring the implementation of machine learning and artificial intelligence which enable the learning progress to be more personalized to each student through adaptive learning.
"Looking at the massive opportunity for educational access and development, we are confident to bring Cakap to step forward to its next growth journey. The tech advancement will make Cakap offer more variety of learning opportunities for Indonesian society. It will be helpful to give broader impacts for untapped potential markets," said Kenneth Li, Partner at MDI-KB's Centauri.
"In a year since Heritas Capital led Cakap's series A+ funding round, we are impressed by the tremendous business traction and impact achieved by the management team, benefitting diverse stakeholders such as training teachers, reskilling workers and helping children learn amidst the pandemic. We are pleased to back Cakap once again as it successfully transits from venture to growth stage with solid execution and high capital efficiency, while further catalyzing access to quality affordable lifelong learning opportunities for all in Indonesia and beyond," said Chik Wai Chiew, CEO and Executive Director of Heritas Capital.
Despite the offline schools starting to come back gradually, the Indonesian government believes that the growth of the Edtech sector will remain strong as hybrid learning is required to complement in-person learning. Rachmadi Widodo, Director of Primary Education Teachers, Ministry of Education, Culture, Research and Technology of the Republic of Indonesia, in Cakap media gathering discussion (27/10) stated, "Edtech will always be required for students as it is also our goal in transforming education into a digital platform. Besides getting it from schools, we believe that Edtech will equip students with a broader landscape of knowledge from international horizon and critical thinking skills. We always support Edtech initiatives as we acknowledge that their goals will always align with our mission: to enhance the educational development in Indonesia."
Cakap aims beyond new market expansion and technology advancement. It's consistency in delivering equal opportunities for Indonesians to access high quality skills and continuously supporting human capital development through their initiatives, Cakap For The Nation (Cakap Untuk Bangsa) and Cakap Teacher Academy. Cakap focuses on developing local communities and drives for social economic empowerment to support Indonesia Maju 2045.
About Cakap
Cakap is one of the biggest Edtech platforms in Indonesia that develops online learning applications with a two-way interaction among students and professional teachers through video calls and text conversations. Our proprietary education platform enables two-way learning interactions for life skills learning across Asia Pacific. Available on Google Play and App Store to reach different segments of students, because everyone deserves a quality education. CAKAP provides educational solutions with an international standard learning curriculum to provide the best online learning experience. #MakinCakap
About MDI Ventures
MDI Ventures is an USD 840+ million multi-stage venture capital firm from Indonesia's largest telecommunications company. It is the largest technology investment company in the country and has one of the best performing funds in Asia. The company's global portfolio spans a wide range of sectors, including healthcare, logistics, fintech, Deep Tech, consumer tech, and more. The holding company PT Telekomunikasi Indonesia Tbk (Telkom Group) is a state-owned enterprise of the Republic of Indonesia. The company is listed on the Indonesia Stock Exchange (IDX: TLKM) and has a secondary listing on the New York Stock Exchange (NYSE: TLK).
About KB Investment
KB Financial Group is Korea's leading financial services provider offering a broad range of financial products and services. The Group was founded in 2008 to better serve clients, enable growth and deliver value in a rapidly changing financial environment. Our core strengths are expertise, broad customer base, wide distribution network and strong brand. Under the Group, there are 13 subsidiaries including: KB Kookmin Bank, KB Securities, KB Insurance, KB Kookmin Card, Prudential Life Insurance, KB Asset Management, KB Capital, KB Life Insurance, KB Real Estate Trust, KB Savings Bank, KB Investment, KB Data Systems and KB Credit Information. Through our businesses, we provide integrated financial solutions and services to our clients to help them achieve their financial goals and thrive.
About Heritas Capital
Heritas Capital is a Singapore-based private equity and venture capital investment firm that invests in fast-growing companies and leading funds across the healthcare, education and technology sectors. Guided by our investment philosophy, "Invest with Purpose, Impact Across Generations", Heritas Capital backs innovative companies to become emerging champions and drive inclusive growth that improves the lives of local communities while delivering sustainable returns to investors.
