Participated · Series C · Sep 2017

Zuoyebang provides online courses, live lessons and homework help for kindergarten through 12th grade students via a mobile app. The company claims about 170 million monthly active users and roughly 50 million daily users. In fall 2020, its paid livestream classes reached more than 10 million students, an industry record the company cites. Much of the user growth was driven by the COVID-19 pandemic, but founder Hou Jianbin said Zuoyebang expects online education to continue growing long term and will invest in K-12 classes and expand its product categories. Financially, Zuoyebang has raised a total of $2.93 billion to date, including the latest $1.6 billion round. Zuoyebang is a Beijing-headquartered online learning app targeting K-12 students in China's national compulsory education system. Its product offers online courses, live lessons, and an AI-powered homework help feature that lets students photograph problems and receive identified solutions. The company reports 170 million monthly active users, about 50 million daily users, and more than 12 million paid subscribers. Founded by Baidu in 2015 and spun out as an independent startup a year later, Zuoyebang competes with rivals such as Yuanfudao. Investors and market research underline the sector opportunity: iResearch projects China's online education market could be worth $81 billion in two years. SoftBank counts Zuoyebang among portfolio companies that have shown growth in recent quarters. Zuoyebang is an online education platform that leverages technology and the internet to provide K-12 teaching resources and live courses. The company operates an app and relaunched zhibo.zuoyebang.com, an online live course service covering primary, middle and high school curricula. Its research team has built a scientific system combining classroom interaction, teachers and personalized content to help students improve grades. The app has nearly 60 million monthly active users. The company plans to use new capital for teaching and research and to continue developing its live-course platform. Zuoyebang was founded in September 2015 and is led by CEO Hou Jianbin in Beijing. Zuoyebang began as part of Baidu Zhidao and operates an after-school service where students ask and answer study-related questions. The one-year-old service reports over 50 million registered users, about 3 million daily users, and more than 950 million Q&A entries on file, and is operational within 113 schools and educational centers across China. It is available on Android and iOS and has fewer than 100 employees, nearly two-thirds focused on R&D. Baidu has spun Zuoyebang out as part of a broader initiative to promote independent quality assets and open some services to external investment. The platform faces competition in China's crowded education market from offerings by Tencent and Alibaba. Zuoyebang is positioned to run with a more startup-like structure backed by external investors to leverage additional networks and autonomy from Baidu.

Participated · Series C · Oct 2014

Koudai Gouwu is a mobile-first shopping marketplace that enables merchants to sell directly to consumers and integrates with Tencent’s WeChat to let retailers set up accounts and market products. It generates revenue from fees for lead generation and sales commissions. The service is tightly integrated with WeChat, which the article cites as claiming 438 million monthly users, giving Koudai significant distribution potential. The company’s mobile focus positions it as a challenger to Alibaba’s Taobao, with some speculation that Koudai may generate strong mobile traffic versus incumbents. The article highlights Tencent’s strategic interest in bolstering its e-commerce presence by linking platforms like WeChat to retail services such as Koudai.

Participated · Equity · Apr 2011

360buy.com is an online retail platform operating in China and is positioned alongside Taobao and described in reports as the "Amazon of China." The company confirmed a $1.5 billion financing disclosed to Reuters. It reported estimated sales of $1.7 billion in 2010. The broader Chinese e-commerce market recorded roughly $79 billion in sales the prior year. 360buy has stated plans to pursue an IPO in 2013. The company is financed by large strategic and financial investors participating in this round.