Edtech Startup Pahamify Receives Series A Funding Led by Shunwei Capital

Edtech startup Pahamify announced series A funding with undisclosed value, led by Shunwei Capital. New investors participated in are Lien Family Office (Wah Hin) and a number of angel investors, as well as previous investors. Insignia Ventures also involved in this round.

The news was delivered by Pahamify's Co-Founder & CEO Rousyan Fikri. He said the fund is to be used for the development of learning materials from elementary to high school levels. It will also be used to accelerate technological innovation and the teaching process on the platform.

“This fund will help Pahamify to maintain our position as a leader in the online tryout service (PTN entrance exam preparation). Last year, we served nearly 1 million practice trial exam sessions. 1 of 3 students who took UTBK last year used Pahamify for their test practice," Rousyan said, Friday (27/11).

Previously, last March, the company has received funding of $150 thousand from the US-based accelerator program, Y Combinator, after participating in the W20 batch.

The pandemic effect

Rousyan continued, this pandemic has encouraged edtech companies like Pahamify to accelerate the innovation level to support the whole student needs. Some of the released features including live online classes for high school students and equivalent for free. There are also learning materials for science, social studies, language, and preparation for higher education entrance examinations (UTBK and Mandiri).

In this online class, everyday students can take in-class sessions, there are six to eight classes each day, through the application and interacting with the teachers (called Rockstar Teacher Pahamify) which makes the learning atmosphere more interactive. "To help students during their study at home, we still provide this feature for free."

In addition, during the pandemic, he claimed that the Pahamify online tryout feature was recommended by Indonesian students as the best platform for UTBK preparation. In this feature, they get practice exams every week and get immediate feedback about their practice results.

"Our system recommends concrete steps students can take to improve their scores and strengthen their exam preparation."

The company also participates in a program organized by the Ministry of Education and Culture, namely Learning from Home which is held on TVRI. "We hope Pahamify's contribution to this program can help the teaching and learning process of Indonesian students in this difficult time."

All of these innovations are quite good results for the company. Rousyan claims, thanks to satisfaction with Pahamify, 2020 graduate users have recommended this application to their juniors.

"As a result, in the current academic year, even though it has only been running for four months, the number of paid users is already 10 times more than the number of paid users in the previous academic year," he concluded.

In Indonesia, Pahamify competes with Ruangguru, Zenius, and Quipper.

–Original article is in Indonesian, translated by Kristin Siagian