Shanghai-based education company Zhangmen has reaped USD 400 million in a new round from investors including SoftBank, Canada Pension Plan Investment Board, International Finance Corporation (IFC), Genesis Capital, and CMC Capital, 36Kr reported on Wednesday. Zhangmen declined to comment when contacted by 36Kr.
The company scored USD 350 million from investors including CMC Capital and IFC in a Series E round in February 2019, according to Zhangmen’s website.
This new round comes at a time when online education has gained a boost from the COVID-19 pandemic in China as classrooms for schools and training agencies were shut down for more than eight months so that students had to learn online at home.
Founded in 2005, Zhangmen first focused only on after-school training in classrooms, but shifted to offer online courses as of 2014, when it was raising an undisclosed amount of money from Qingsong Fund in an angel round. The company features an app called Zhangmen Yiduiyi, allowing students from kindergarten to high school to receive one-on-one tutoring on all school subjects from English to Math online. So far, the app has gathered more than 40 million users located in more than 600 cities in China.
Zhangmen is among a slew of companies that are competing for hundreds of millions of students in China. Beijing-based Yuanfudao, an edtech startup covering K12 and adult education, was reportedly raising USD 1.2 billion of fresh money, following a USD 1 billion round in March.
Zuoyebang, a Beijing-based homework support platform, completed its Series E round raking in a total of USD 750 million from a group of investors including Tiger Global, Sequoia Capital China, and SoftBank. Beijing-based Leleketang, which sells pre-recorded videos to students and training agencies, in September raised USD 40 million in a Series C round led by Owl Ventures.