China-based online teaching platform VIPKid raised $200m today in a series D round featuring internet group Tencent at a valuation of more than $1.5bn, people familiar with the matter told Bloomberg.
The round was led by venture capital firm Sequoia Capital China and included Yunfeng Capital, Zhen Fund, Matrix Partners China and, according to Bloomberg, Sinovation Ventures.
Founded in 2013, VIPKid operates an online platform that links a user base of roughly 200,000 Chinese students aged four to 12 years old with a network of about 20,000 North American teachers or tutors.
The company has created a standardised curriculum for its classes to ensure quality, and it expects to generate about RMB5bn ($750m) in revenue in 2017, co-founder and CEO Cindy Mi told Bloomberg.
The funding will support an expansion drive as VIPKid aims to reach 1 million students by 2019. It is preparing to add new subjects to its offering and enter new geographic markets, and will begin offering US students classes in Mandarin this year.
Dowson Tong, president of Tencent’s Social Network Group, said: “Tencent is highly impressed with how VIPKid has efficiently distributed education resources in the US and China in only three years.
“In this time, VIPKid has provided tens of thousands of teachers with supplementary money while allowing hundreds of thousands of children to receive high-quality, personalised education. Through our strategic partnership, Tencent is eager to work with VIPKid to advance the future of online education.”
Sequoia Capital and Yunfeng Capital co-led VIPKid’s last round, a $100m series C round in August 2016 that was followed by an undisclosed amount of funding from VC fund Bryant Stibel Investments three weeks later.
The company had raised $5m in a 2014 series A round featuring Matrix Partners, Sequoia Capital and Innovation Works before all three returned for a $20m series B round led by Northern Light Venture Capital the following year. VC firm Learn Capital is also an investor in VIPKid.
– This article was amended on August 22, 2017 to reflect a press release issued by VIPKid.