Geniebook, Singapore’s online education platform for the English, Mathematics and Science (EMS) syllabus, has secured US$16.6 million in a Series A funding round which was led by East Ventures, Lightspeed Venture Partners and several other prominent angel investors.
John Danner (Dunce Capital), Gaurav Munjal & Roman Saini (Unacademy), Kunal Bahl & Rohit Bansal (Snapdeal), Alvin Tse (Xiaomi), Pham Giang Linh (Hocmai) were among the private individuals who invested in this round, as well as senior executives from some of Southeast Asia’s most influential companies like Grab, Shopee and Gojek. This latest round of funding comes after a previous Pre-Series A round which raised US$1.1 million in 2019 by a private investment company, Apricot Capital.
“More than ever today, with online pedagogy becoming essential, we must greatly enhance the digital experience to accelerate students’ learning. We are thrilled to work with our new partners to elevate our suite of learning products and expand the team strategically in the region,” said Neo Zhizhong, CEO and Co-founder of Geniebook.
“Geniebook, with their differentiated product offerings, is one of the leading EdTech players in Singapore and has shown strong traction in overseas markets like Viet Nam. We have seen them grow as founders and are excited to join them in their journey to develop their core key strategies and expand to other countries in the region,” said Roderick Purwana, Managing Partner at East Ventures.
Since 2019, Geniebook has expanded its team to 5 times its size and today has over 350 employees globally. The startup will utilise the funds from this round to further expand the team with strategic new hires across linchpin roles in the Curriculum, Engineering, Product, Growth teams and more.
Funds will also be used to continually innovate existing Geniebook products, including GenieSmart, AI-personalised worksheets that identify specific learning gaps for targeted improvement; GenieClass, where students learn from expert teachers via live online classes; and GenieAsk, which allows enrolled students to chat with and receive help from experienced teachers in real-time.
Founded in 2017 by experienced educators Neo Zhizhong and Alicia Cheong, Geniebook is a powerful suite of online learning products designed to help students accelerate their academic performance through personalisation. Incredibly intuitive, Geniebook offers multiple ways to compound a student’s learning through self-directed and social learning across its products, ranging from worksheets, live online classes and teacher chats.
Since the start of 2019, Geniebook has achieved impressive revenue growth of over 2,000 per cent, with a fast-growing user base of over 150,000 in Southeast Asia. In Viet Nam alone, revenue grew by 3 times compared to 2020. The profitable Singapore-headquartered company continues to fly the flag for Singapore education regionally with offices located in Viet Nam, Indonesia and Malaysia. — VNS