Tencent-backed Chinese edtech firm closes $400m series E round

Chinese edtech firm Huohua Siwei announced it has secured US$150 million in its series E3 round led by Trustbridge Partners, bringing the company’s total capital raised in its series E round to US$400 million.

The firm previously raised US$150 million in a series E1 round led by US-based investment firm KKR in August 2020 and US$100 million in its series E2 round led by Tencent later that year in October.

Photo credit: Huohua Siwei

Huohua Siwei, which is based in Beijing, provides online courses on mathematics and science for children between the ages of  3 to 12 years old. It has also offered Chinese livestreaming and artificial intelligence courses in the past two years.

The company claims that it has achieved tens of thousands of registered users in the overseas market since it started its global expansion efforts. As of October last year, the startup said it has attracted 85,000 daily learners and 250,000 total users on its various learning apps.

Huohua Sihua has raised eight funding rounds to date. Prior to its series E round, it closed an US$85 million series D round led by GGV Capital and KKR in 2019 and a US$30 million series D+ round from video-sharing platform Kuaishou last year.

The edtech startup’s other backers include Lightspeed China Partners, Sequoia Capital China, Tencent, and IDG Capital, among others.

Huohua Siwei is up against rivals such as Zuoyebang, which raised US$1.6 billion in a series E+ round from investors such as Alibaba, SoftBank Vision Fund, and Sequoia China in December 2020, as well as Yuanfudao, which was valued at US$15.5 billion after its US$2.2 billion round in October last year.