Beijing-based software maker Baijiayun has scored RMB 178 million (USD 26.4 million) in a Series B round led by GP Capital and joined by Qinglan Capital, CASH Capital (Beijing) Investment Management, and Houde Qianhai Fund, 36Kr reported on Friday.
Founder and CEO Li Gangjiang told 36Kr that new funds will be used on hiring talent, sales network expansion, R&D, as well as mergers and acquisitions. Before founding Baijiayun in 2017, Li served as CTO of the video unit of online news portal Sohu (NASDAQ: SOHU).
“Baijiayun hopes to be a company like Salesforce, which started with a customer relationship management software, and gradually acquired dozens of upstream and downstream companies, and finally formed dozens of product lines, generating about RMB 100 billion (USD 15 billion) revenue yearly,” Li shared with 36Kr, adding that he has invested tens of millions of RMB himself into the company to realize this dream.
“The company has also acquired three companies and integrated them into its in-house developed business and will continue acquisitions in the future,” the founder and CEO said.
Baijiayun, which counts Baidu (NASDAQ: BIDU) among its investors, mainly sells software to corporate clients in the education sector, allowing training agencies to provide livestreaming courses or on-demand video classes, and hold video conferences.
“Baijiayun moved fast to meet explosive growth in the demand for cloud-based video services from the education industry and corporate training sector during the COVID-19 pandemic,” Hou Haoxiang, partner of GP Capital, told 36Kr.