Chinese financial education business receives $115m Series C
Golden Education, which claims to be China’s largest professional financial education provider, has received RMB800 million ($115 million) in Series C funding led by Hillhouse Capital and Morgan Stanley.
The round, which values the company are more than $1 billion, also featured Yonghua Capital – an investment firm controlled by China’s Yongjin Group – and Vision Knight Capital Partners. Golden previously received Series A funding from New Oriental Education Group in 2014 and then a Series B round from recruitment services platform 51job in 2015.
Founded in 2006, Golden operates B2B and B2C platforms intended to cover the full range of professional education services, from financial qualification certification to corporate finance and tax consulting training. It has more than 20 campuses and 40 branches across China, as well as an online education business. Golden has worked with more than 50,000 companies and three million individual students.
The major offline asset is Golden Finance & Tax College, which is headquartered in Shanghai and has 40 branches. It has provided services to more than 40,000 corporate customers and 500,000 trainees. Other business interests cover education technology, employment training, university service platforms, and financial learning tools, as well as online learning platforms.
The company provides professional certifications through partnerships with the likes of the Association of Chartered Certified Accountants (ACCA), American Institute of Certified Public Accountants (AICPA), CFA Institute, the Chartered Institute of Management Accountants (CIMA), and the Institute of Management Accountants (IMA).
The new capital will go towards investment in areas such as artificial intelligence, big data and cloud computing, enabling Golden to offer more sophisticated and personalized services. Hillhouse said in a statement that Golden had established a strong presence in the B2B and B2C ecosystems and represents a good fit with its investment theme of bridging technology and education.
More on Greater China
Latest News
Asian GPs slow implementation of ESG policies - survey
Asia-based private equity firms are assigning more dedicated resources to environment, social, and governance (ESG) programmes, but policy changes have slowed in the past 12 months, in part due to concerns raised internally and by LPs, according to a...
Singapore fintech start-up LXA gets $10m seed round
New Enterprise Associates (NEA) has led a USD 10m seed round for Singapore’s LXA, a financial technology start-up launched by a former Asia senior executive at The Blackstone Group.
India's InCred announces $60m round, claims unicorn status
Indian non-bank lender InCred Financial Services said it has received INR 5bn (USD 60m) at a valuation of at least USD 1bn from unnamed investors including “a global private equity fund.”
Insight leads $50m round for Australia's Roller
Insight Partners has led a USD 50m round for Australia’s Roller, a venue management software provider specializing in family fun parks.