China-based education services provider Alo7 raised $37.5m in a series D round yesterday led by conglomerate Legend through its investment vehicle Legend Capital.
The round also included mobile chipmaker Qualcomm and education group New Oriental as well as Guohe Capital, UG Investment and Vickers Venture Partners. Alo7 is now valued at $969m.
Founded in 2004 as Saybot, Alo7 provides a range of mobile applications and long-distance English tutoring services. It also produces its own digital courses and textbooks for primary and middle schools.
The company has partnered more than 1,000 education providers across China and attracted more than 15 million registered users to date. It will use the cash to hire additional engineers and further improve its offering.
Alo7 previously raised an eight-figure series C round in 2013 led by Qualcomm, with participation from UMC Capital and Vickers Venture Partners. While Alo7 has not disclosed details about its series B round, it secured $8.2m in series A funding led by CID in 2007.
Li Jiaqing, managing director of Legend Capital, said: “Alo7 has done a great job in developing curricula, creating a wealth of content, constructing an integrated framework, and managing their business processes.
“Alo7 values the important role of technology in the innovation process of educational services.
“In addition, we strongly support and recognise the importance of ‘dual teaching’ because the expansion and promotion of the teacher’s ability itself is also very helpful in solving the problem of inadequate and uneven distribution of educational resources.”