KUALA LUMPUR – Amidst the uncertainty of the COVID-19 pandemic, Malaysian edu-tech company A-One has secured RM2 million in seed funding from Wavemaker Partners, Southeast Asia’s leading early-stage venture capital firm. The seed round was led by Wavemaker Partners, Southeast Asia’s go-to early-stage VC for enterprise and deep tech.
Earlier in April 2020, A-One had also received funding from ScaleUp Ventures Malaysia, as one of the top 10 companies for regional growth in ScaleUp Accelerator programme, as well as an MYR 300,000 grant from Cradle Fund Sdn Bhd, a government agency that helps promising tech startups in Malaysia grow and commercialize their businesses.
AOne is an edu-tech solution that brings together a B2C marketplace and B2B backend management software for all kinds of local enrichment lessons across Southeast Asia. Its key product, AOneSchools, helps enrichment centres like tuition schools, kindergartens, enrichment academies etc. manage their administrative workflow.
On top of the B2B service, AOne is also providing a B2C online marketplace for local classes, a platform that connects students with education providers near them powered by AOne’s vision: “Anyone can teach, everyone can learn”.
Founded in 2015, AOne started as an online marketplace for local classes. As its client base expanded, the company learned about the struggles of education centre owners with managing their operational workflow.
Determined to help, the team, led by founder Dr. Darren Gouk, developed and launched AOneSchools in 2018- a management software that facilitates student enrollment, class scheduling, and fee tracking for educators.
Currently, AOne serves 800+ enrichment centres, managing over 50,000 lessons and more than 100,000 learners and educators across multiple cities, with the majority of them located in Malaysia and Singapore.
In the next 12 to 15 months, the company plans to use the funds to drive market expansion across Southeast Asia, as well as enhance its current product offerings in education sector.
Despite the precarious economic conditions due to the COVID-19 pandemic, AOne was still able to gain the confidence of investors.
Amidst a nationwide lockdown, the company still displayed sustainable growth, boosted by the Malaysian government’s initiative in promoting operational digitalisation for the country’s small and medium enterprises.
Gifted-Child Group, a pre-kinder and kindy centre in Kuching, Sarawak has digitalised their operations using AOne’s software during the lockdown.
Group director Jenny Jee said that she has received positive feedback about the software from both admin staff and parents, especially regarding the e-payment feature, where parents are able to make fee payment (pay for school fees) from the comfort of their homes.
“In the past, parents needed to be physically present at our centres for them to make payment and for us to issue their paper receipt. Now, they can make payments via the mobile app and immediately receive an e-receipt,” Jee said.
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