Chinese Leading Online Educator Zuoyebang raises $750 Million in Venture Funding as the coronavirus pandemic encourages investor interest in education technology.
Beijing, China – June 30, 2020 /MarketersMedia/ —
Online tutoring start-up Zuoyebang announced Monday that It has raised $750 Million in new funding round as the coronavirus pandemic encourages investor interest in education technology.
The latest investment in the five-year-old Chinese company was led by FountainVest Partners and Tiger Global, joined by Qatar Investment Authoroty（QIA）, Sequoia Capital China, SoftBank Vision Fund 1, Tiantu Capital, and Xianghe Capital. Taihe Capital acted as financial adviser of the deal.
The funding of Zuoyebang underscores the boost in education technology, known as “edtech”, by the coronavirus pandemic, as schools were shut and students were asked to take online classes from home in China.
Analysts say even though school have started to slowly reopen, the trend of online education is to continue and the market potential is huge as China has nearly 200 million primary and secondary students.
Jianbin Hou, founder and CEO of Zuoyebang, said after the financing, the company will continue to heavily invest in the research and development of the product and to improve its services, so as to create the best learning experience for users.
Zuoyebang enables students in China to upload their homework questions and search for answers on its platform with the help of artificial intelligence. According to the company’s internal data, its daily active users has reached over 50 million and monthly active users are over 170 million, which brings its overall active users to 800 million, making it one of the biggest online educators and one of the most popular online educators in China.
The company has witnessed fast growth, as the numbers of subscribers for its live-streaming courses have increased 4 times since last year. Since the coronavirus hit the country earlier this year, the company has taught 49 million students in total, including over 12 million paying subscribers.
Zuoyebang was founded by Chinese search engine giant Baidu (BIDU.O) in 2014 and spun off in 2015. Its investors from previous funding rounds included Sequoia Capital China, Goldman Sachs (GS.N), Coatue Management and GGV Capital. It had secured $350 million in its series D funding in 2018, according to researcher Hurun. SoftBank Vision Fund has invested $500 million in series D+, according to Zuoyebang.
Contact Info:
Name: Gu Jinling
Email: Send Email
Organization: Zuoyebang Education Technology (Beijing) Limited
Address: Kaituo Road No. 1, Huiyuan Kaituo Plaza Floor 4, Haidian District, Beijing
Phone: +86-010-82177628
Website: https://www.zybang.com/
Source: MarketersMedia
Release ID: 88966421
