Chinese K12 education site 17zuoye raises $100m
H Capital has led a $100 million Series D round of funding for 17zuoye.com, a Chinese K-12 online learning and teaching platform. Singapore’s Temasek Holdings, DST Advisors and Shunwei Capital Partners, also took part in the round.
The investment round values the start-up at $600 million, the company told local press.
Launched in October 2011, 17zuoye provides an interactive learning platform for kids to learn mathematics and English. It also offers reports on the children to make it easier for teachers and parents to access their progress. The platform had over 10 million registered users as of the end of December.
Zhenfund provided seed capital for the firm in 2012, and Shunwei committed $5 million in a Series A round a year later, according to AVCJ Research. Two parties invested an additional $10 million in September 2013, then last year, 17zuoye raised $20 million in a Series C round from Tiger Global Management, Shunwei and H Capital.
Since the end of last year, 17zuoye has expanded its learning products to other school subjects and forged partnerships with publishing companies and education service providers, delivering its self-developed online education tools.
Chang Liu, 17zuoye's founder, a former executive at China's education group New Oriental, said that in order to be successful, the platform has to collaborate extensively with global leading companies in addition to massive capital injection. With the new investment, Liu said the firm will set up more third-party collaborations, as well as to optimize its existing services.
H Capital was founded in 2002 by Xiaohong Chen, who was previously a managing partner with Tiger Global in China. The firm's recent investments include childcare-focused Chinese e-commerce platform Miyabaobei.com, image-sharing app Nice and mobile shopping portal Koudai Gouwu.
According to iResearch, China's online education industry generated RMB83.9 billion ($13 billion) in revenue in 2013 and will reach RMB173.39 billion in 2017.
In the K-12 space, TAL Education, a China-based after-school tutoring services provider, acquired a minority stake in childcare website Babytree last year. The online baby nursing information provider previously secured VC investments from Matrix Partners, Susquehanna Growth Equity and China Broadband Capital Partners. In 2013, Shunwei committed a Series A round of funding for Babybus.com, which develops educational apps for children.
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