Marcy, Bessemer back New Zealand-founded Chinese tuition platform
Marcy Venture Partners, an investment firm co-founded by US rap artist Jay-Z, and Bessemer Venture Partners have led a Series B round for Wukong Education, a New Zealand-founded teaching platform specialising in Chinese language training.
The round - said to amount to several tens of million US dollars - also featured Hong Kong actor Daniel Wu and Bobby Wagner, a Superbowl-winning former American football player.
Marcy was established in 2018 by Shawn Carter (also known as Jay-Z), former Roc Nation CEO Jay Brown and Larry Marcus, previously a general partner at Walden Venture Capital. The firm closed its second fund on USD 325m in 2021.
Wukong offers Chinese language education in overseas markets. The model involves connecting China-based teachers to foreign students for online one-to-one classes. It claims to have served more than 300,000 families across 100 countries and regions through a network of 3,000 teachers.
The approach is much like that of VIPKid, an English-language online learning platform that targets students in China and recruits teachers in North America. The company has received several rounds of funding, including a USD 500m investment in 2018 led by HongShan - formerly Sequoia Capital China - Tencent Investment, Yunfeng Capital, and Coatue Management.
However, China's K-12 online education industry was largely wiped out in 2021 when regulators ruled that after-school tuition providers focused on academic subjects must be non-profit. The use of foreign personnel based overseas to deliver classes was banned, making life difficult for one-to-one platforms.
Wukong claims to have developed a Chinese-learning system based on the International Baccalaureate (IB) system and an inquiry-based teaching model. Following a free trial, users sign up for packages of 30-minute classes. The lowest entry point is a 12-class offering that costs USD 349.
Wukong also provides free weekly Chinese cultural classes based on a large-class model as a supplement to the one-on-one offering.
The company was founded in 2016 by Vicky Wang, who worked for CID Group and JD Capital early in her career before moving to New Zealand. Wukong established a global headquarters in the US last year and plans to launch mathematics and English language education programmes in 2023.
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