Vision Fund, the investment firm formed by telecommunications conglomerate SoftBank, has begun talks to invest $500m in China-based online education platform Zuoyebang, Bloomberg reported yesterday, citing people familiar with the matter.
Zuoyebang operates an app that enables primary and secondary school students to upload their homework questions in order to seek answers. It was founded by internet group Baidu in 2014 before being spun off from the corporate’s online query service, Baidu Zhidao, in 2015.
The company claims its platform, which has branched out into educational livestreaming and one-to-one tutoring, has about 300 million registered users. The sources did not disclose how it intends to spend the prospective funding.
News of SoftBank’s interest comes just after India-based educational platform Byju’s raised $100m in funding from General Atlantic, following earlier speculation SoftBank was in talks to invest.
The round would follow a reported $585m in funding, including $350m in a July 2018 series D round led by Coatue Management and backed by Goldman Sachs, Sequoia Capital China, GGV Capital, Tiantu Capital, New Enterprise Associates, Taihe Capital, Primavera Capital and Xiang He Capital.
Zuoyebang’s investors also include Legend Capital, a venture capital firm set up by conglomerate Legend Holdings, which co-led the company’s $25m series A round with Sequoia China in 2015.
Both reinvested as part of a $60m series B co-led by GGV Capital and Xianghe Capital the following year. All four series B investors also participated in a $150m series C round in August 2017 that was led by H Capital with backing from Tiger Global Management.
