With fresh funding, Snapask expands tech-driven learning across Asia

Snapask, an educational technology startup that has just raised a US$35 million funding round, started out with – and is mostly known for – its namesake feature, which lets students upload a photo of their homework and get help from tutors.

Photo credit: Snapask

But since its founding in 2015, the Hong Kong-based company now offers more services, such as Sofasoda, a feature that helps university students learn soft skills, and Wizmo, a platform that provides teachers with student analytics. Snapask also operates Lab, its network of physical classrooms where students in a number of Asian cities can study after school.

With the fresh funding, the company plans to expand into professional-grade educational videos while also doubling down on Southeast Asia, a key growth market. According to Snapask founder and CEO Timothy Yu, the vision is to drive a “revolution” of self-directed learning across Asia.

“Overall in Asia, education is a top priority to get better opportunities in society. Students and families [are willing to] pay a lot to invest in education,” he says. While the region can be too exam-driven, Yu cites how the latest education trends emphasize a return to the basics, which encourages students to learn and grow independently.

Beyond Q and A

Snapask’s bread and butter includes its Q and A feature, which connects over 3 million students to 350,000 tutors, as well as its teaching videos and courses focused on university entrance exams.

The company’s newer services were introduced in recent years. Lab was launched in 2018 to provide after-school study spaces in Hong Kong, Taipei, and Seoul. Yu says that the Snapask team saw how difficult it was for students in these cities to find such a place. The typical venue option is a McDonald’s or a Starbucks, where students often hog multiple tables, stay for hours, and purchase a minimal amount of food or drinks. Unsurprisingly, this practice (which is also observed in Singapore) often draws the ire of other patrons and the establishment itself.

Wizmo, a business-to-business enterprise product, was rolled out after the Snapask team found out how a lot of teachers are burdened with administrative work. Instead of giving out homework assignments – which teachers often do to track their students’ progress – Wizmo collects data points and visualizes them in a “clean way,” Yu says.

“What questions are students asking? What do they need exactly with regards to content?” he points out. “This lets teachers focus on teaching instead of evaluation and administration.”

Snapask founder and CEO Timothy Yu / Photo credit: Snapask

Launched during the latter half of 2019, Sofasoda’s unusual name has a backstory. The team pictured students lounging on a sofa with a can of soda and using the app to learn soft skills, like “how to debate, negotiate, do a good presentation, or game theory,” Yu recalls. “Not traditional teaching content, but something [that can] help a person grow and be competitive in the market.”

The idea for this feature came about when the company realized that many loyal Snapask users would stop using the app when they graduate high school. “If we don’t have offerings for students after that stage, it will be a big loss,” Yu notes. “How can we re-engage these users?”

That aside, Yu says that the Q and A interaction between students and tutors continues to be the driving force for Snapask. But it also prompted the team to explore how to develop engaging content.

Leveling up

Room for growth