Ready to meet new startups to invest in? We have more than hundreds of startups ready to connect with potential investors on our platform. Create or claim your Investor profile today and turn on e27 Connect to receive requests and fundraising information from them.
LingoAce, a Singapore-headquartered edutech company and a Chinese language learning platform, said today it has secured a US$105 million Series C investment round led by Sequoia Capital India.
Owl Ventures, existing investor Shunwei Capital, and SWC Global also participated in the round, bringing its total funding secured this year to US$160 million.
As per a statement, this round comes a few months after it bagged a US$55 million Series B round, led by Tiger Global and Owl Ventures. This round was not disclosed.
The new round brings the edutech company’s total financing raised since its launch to US$180 million.
It will use the fresh capital to grow the global team with significant hiring underway in the US, Europe and Southeast Asia. A portion of the money will be used to strengthen both curriculum and product development and to scale sales and marketing support.
The company also plans to develop new English language programmes further and explore other subjects to meet the continuing demand for education globally.
Founded in 2017 by Hugh Yao, LingoAce is a personalised and interactive learning platform. It has a team of more than 4,000 professionally-certified teachers with international CTCSOL accreditation for Chinese language teaching to global students. Based on a globally-accredited syllabus, these learning experiences are designed in-house by LingoAce’s team of curriculum and education specialists, as well as multimedia, animation and gamification experts.
After a lesson is conducted, machine-enabled technology is leveraged to assess the teaching quality and finetune the curriculum and learning experience. Live one-on-one and small-group classes with teachers also provide learners with real-time feedback and interaction.
The company targets students aged four to 15 years, enabling its stringently selected professional Chinese teachers to deliver lesson plans in real-time across physical borders in one-to-one and small group classes.
Today, Lingo Ace reaches a global base across more than 100 countries and regions.
During the COVID-19 crisis, the firm witnessed a 4,000 per cent growth in bookings globally. In Southeast Asia, where 55 per cent of consumers surveyed during the pandemic were using online education services for the first time, the company has grown more than 2,000 per cent since 2020.
“At LingoAce, we believe that the opportunity to learn a new language can unlock a world of possibilities for children,” said Hugh Yao, CEO and Founder of LingoAce. “With the backing of our investors, we plan to continue to scale our platform to reach more audiences and ensure that more children across the globe will continue to have access to quality online educational experiences.”
Also Read: LingoAce nabs US$7M in Series A funding from Shunwei Capital
In Singapore, LingoAce has more than doubled its headcount this year from 60 employees. Notable new hires include Marshall Roslyn as CFO and chief strategy officer. In addition, Goh Aik Chuan, a former associate GM at Uber, has joined as the edutech company as GM (Southeast Asia). Chuan will be overseeing LingoAce’s expansion across the region, focusing on Singapore, Indonesia and Thailand.
As part of the funding rounds, Abheek Anand, MD at Sequoia India and Ian Chiu, MD at Owl Ventures, will join the board of LingoAce. Dennis Yang, a former CEO of Udemy, has joined as a member of LingoAce’s advisory board.
—
The post Interactive learning platform LingoAce nabs US$160M to scale its teams in US, Europe, SEA appeared first on e27.