Tencent-Backed Homework App Yuanfudao Jumps To $3B Valuation

Yuanfudao, a six-year-old homework app startup announced this week that it has successfully elevated $300 million. The funding round was led by big-name investors including Tencent, China’s largest social networking and gaming company.

Other participants to fund the homework app include Warburg Pincus, Matrix Partners China, and IDG Capital. The current funding has raised Yuanfudao’s valuation from $1 billion in 2017 to $3 billion currently.

China’s exam-oriented education system has lifted the billion-dollar tutoring market, while a lot of teaching effort is happening online. A report research firm iResearch shows that by the end of the year, China’s K-12 market will reach 44 billion yuan, and will triple itself to 150 billion yuan by 2022.

Homework app Yuanfudao, which means ‘ape tutor’ in Chinese, claims to serve more than 200 million users. It regulates many services including live courses, the database of exam problems, and homework help app which scans homework problems and solves them instantly with just a snap of the camera.

Yuanfudao latest reports by Techcrunch suggests that the majority of its revenue comes from selling live courses and it plans to use the fund investments in research and development of AI as well as improve its app’s user experience.

Other companies with similar homework app experience include Zuoyenbang, backed by Chinese search giant Baidu, and Yiqizuoye with Singapore sovereign fund Temasek as an investor. The startups are in a heated race to fight for Chinese students and their parents.

Many Chinese companies that initially focused on higher education, have now come into the K-12 fray including New Oriental and 51Talk, which are both listed on the New York Stock Exchange.

Education enlightens us about the world we are living in and invokes us to do something better. The education system is so strong in China that academic exams dictate the kind of universities and high schools that students opt into and the future that awaits them.

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Manish Content Strategist

With a mixture of literature, cinema, and photography, Manish is mostly traveling. When he is not, he is probably writing another tech news for you!

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