MAGICEARS, a Beijing-based English learning startup, has raised its first investment: $6 million from the Bob Xu ZhenEdu Fund and online tutoring company Yuanfudao. According to a press announcement, MagicEars will use the funds to further develop the company’s teaching and research platform.
The deal comes only a few days after Chinese online tutoring startup VIPKID nabbed a $200 million Series D round, valuing the company at nearly $1.5 billion. “The demand of online English learning for children has been very clear, and the market size is scaling up,” Jiang Min, vice president of ZhenEdu Fund said in a prepared statement.
Instructors can upload their own teaching videos to the VIPKID platform, where users can pick out who they want to learn from. Meanwhile teachers on MargicEars, who “have a professional English teaching certification” lead virtual classes with about four students at a time. Launched in March 2017, MagicEars aims to reach Chinese students ages 5 to 12, and tuition ranges from around $600 to $1,050 USD.
