VIPKID, an online English education startup, told TMTpost on June 21th that it has closed USD 500 million in a Series D+ round led by Coatue, Tencent, Sequoia Capital China, and Yunfeng Capital.

The startup is valued at over RMB 20 billion (USD 3 billion). This is the only education startup which is valued at over RMB 20 billion in China so far. It is also considered the largest fundraising in the online education sector worldwide.

VIPKID claims to have more than 40,000 English teachers from the North America, and the number of paid students has reached over 300,000, covering 35 countries and regions around the world.

Lin Haifeng, Tencent investment management partner, said, "Tencent pays great attention to its investment in education sector and hopes to carry out in-depth cooperation with companies such as VIPKID, to help China's education companies develop the global market.”

Mi Wenjuan, founder & CEO of VIPKID, shared that the capital will be used in three areas. First, the money will be used to continue to intensify efforts on teacher’s recruitment in North America to provide the best native English teacher resources for the children worldwide. Second, the money will be used to have more talents for VIPKID’s technology and product function, which will help VIPKID maintain comprehensive advantages in teaching and learning experience. Third, the money will be used to fuel globalization and strategic deployment, improve teaching efficiency and explore more possibility in online education area. (The article is edited by Yi LIU)

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The article is edited by @Yi LIU (Email: yiliu@tmtpost.com;  Mobile/WeChat: +86 13911703028). The Chinese version article is published with authorization from the author @Li Chengcheng, please note source and hyperlink when reproduce.

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