Tencent leads edtech firm Huohua Siwei’s $100m series E2 round

Beijing-based online education platform Huohua Siwei raised US$100 million in its series E2 round led by Tencent, which was joined by the Carlyle Group as well as edtech company Yuanfudao, 36Kr reported.

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The latest round brings Huohua’s total fundraised amount since it was founded in 2017 to US$440 million. It closed its KKR-led US$150 million series E1 round in August and had received an investment of US$30 million from China’s second-largest short video platform Kuaishou in April.

This new funding comes at a time when online education is receiving a boost in China due to the Covid-19 pandemic, as students have to study at home with classrooms still closed after more than eight months. Huohua had gone live with its online math-teaching courses in March 2018, its Chinese classes in August 2019, and its English classes in August.

The company has attracted 85,000 daily learners on its various learning apps, including Huohua Siwei Ketang, which features livestreamed math classes, and XiaoHuohua AI Ke, which provides AI-enabled math courses. The number of Huahua’s total learners has reached 250,000.

Huohua is among a slew of companies that are gaining investors’ support as they compete for hundreds of millions of students in China. The Beijing-based iHuman, also known as Hongen in China, has just raised US$84 million in its initial public offering, KrAsia reported on Friday. The startup offers several educational apps, including iHuman Chinese, which teaches three- to eight-year-old kids with the use of cartoons and games, Magic Math, and English World. The company has gathered 10.3 million monthly active users by Q2 2020.

Shanghai-based education company Zhangmen recently raised US$400 million from investors that include SoftBank and Canada Pension Plan Investment Board. Its app Zhangmen Yiduiyi allows kindergarten to high school students to receive one-on-one online tutoring on all school subjects, from English to Math; so far, the app has reached more than 40 million users located in more than 600 cities in China.

Huohua’s new investor Yuanfudao was reportedly raising US$1.2 billion of fresh money itself in September, following a US$1 billion round in March. The company owns the AI-powered English- and math-teaching tutoring app Banma AI Ke and the all-subjects education app Yuanfudao. It also operates Fenbi, a learning site for adults studying for entrance exams to become national civil servants.

This report was first published on KrAsia.