Vision Fund invests $175m in Korea education start-up

It brings total investment in the company to $250 million, including a $41.8 million round last year that featured local private equity firms Nvestor, Intervest, and IMM Investment, alongside Korea Development Bank.

Earlier backers include Korea Investment Partners, K-Growth, Premier Partners, TheVentures, DS Investment Management, DSC Investment, Shinhan Investment, Company K Partners, ES Investor, Huayi Investment, Alpenroute Asset Management, and TIPS, a Seoul-based incubator.

For Vision Fund 2, it extends a string of recent online education investments in Asia, including China’s VIPThink and India’s Unacademy. The fund is also an investor in Chinese small-class tuition platform Zhangmen, which filed for a US IPO last week.

“Riiiid is driving a paradigm shift in education, from a ‘one size fits all’ approach to personalized instruction,” Greg Moon, a managing partner at SoftBank Investment Advisers, said in a statement. “Powered by AI and machine learning, Riiid’s platform provides education companies, schools and students with personalized plans and tools to optimize learning potential.”

Riiid describes its focus on personalized instruction as a democratization of the education space. The platform uses deep-learning algorithms that analyze student data and predict user behavior to recommend study plans on an individual basis in real-time. It is best known for its English language learning app, Santa, but also provides various services around K-12 and postsecondary education, as well as corporate training.

Technology development is an important part of the growth plan, with the company having applied for 103 patents, 27 of which are registered. Geographic expansion is taking place in parallel, including the establishment of Riiid Labs in Silicon Valley last year. The goal is to extend operations across the US, South America, and the Middle East. R&D centers and data labeling centers are currently under development in North America and Africa.

SoftBank had received $108 billion in soft commitments for Vision Fund 2 when marketing was put on hold in mid-2019 due to below-target performance by Vision Fund 1. SoftBank has since provided balance sheet capital for Fund II deals and increased its commitment to the vehicle from $10 billion to $30 billion, citing a revival in fortunes for Fund I.

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• Topics
• North Asia
• Consumer
• Technology
• Expansion
• South Korea
• Softbank
• Education
• TMT
• artificial intelligence