Wu Capital leads round for Chinese vocational training business
Sanjieke, a China-based vocational training services provider, has raised an RMB130 million ($19 million) in a Series B round of funding led by Wu Capital.
The 2015-founded company raised its angel and Series A rounds from GPs include Will Hunting Capital, K2VC, IDG Capital, Geekhouse Capital and Zhichu Capital.
Sanjieke targets IT professionals, offering courses in internet product management, data analysis, online marketing, and social media platform management. The B2C part of the business has over one million users and generates tens of millions of renminbi in annual revenue. On the B2B side, Sanjieke has signed up more than 300 clients, primarily technology companies such as Baidu, Alibaba Group, Didi Chuxing, and JD.com.
China is the largest technical and vocational training market in the world. Over 26 million students were enrolled in 12,300 vocational training institutions in 2016, according to government statistics. In early 2019, Beijing issued guidelines encouraging private enterprises to lead or even dominate the development of the industry.
Online vocational training is especially popular. The market was worth RMB76.8 billion in 2018, up from RMB36.8 billion in 2015, according to a report by Tencent Holdings. It is expected to reach RMB100 billion by 2020.
Other major players include Offer Xiansheng and UniCareer, which provide job hunting training and consultation services. Offer raised Series A round from the VC arm of online classifieds platform 58.com in April, while UniCaree completed a RMB180 million round led by a local recruitment website last year.
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