TutorGroup, the China-based online education platform backed by e-commerce firm Alibaba and internet company CyberAgent, raised $200m yesterday in a series C round that valued it at $1bn.
The series C funding was provided by Singaporean sovereign wealth fund GIC, investment bank Goldman Sachs, and private equity funds Silverlink Capital and Russia-China Investment Fund (RCIF).
Founded in 2004, TutorGroup operates a real-time interactive language training platform that employs more than 4,500 teachers across 60 countries.
The company plans to now expand its offering beyond language learning to other on-demand services, such as legal and medical advice, personal wealth management and tutoring in leisure activities like cooking or yoga.
Eric Yang, CEO and co-founder of TutorGroup, said: “These resources will accelerate and broaden our global profile by enabling us to expand internationally and grow the business platform that enables the exchange of professional advice and other online services, furthering our ability to tap the significant potential on which our competitors will be unable to capitalise.”
The series C round follows a $100m series B round featuring Alibaba, Singaporean government-backed fund Temasek and venture capital firm Qiming Venture Partners in February 2014, and an investment of undisclosed size from SBI Group, a subsidiary of telecoms firm SoftBank.
TutorGroup previously received $15m from Qiming in April 2012, before securing an undisclosed sum from CyberAgent’s corporate venturing fund, CyberAgent, later the same year.