In China, the number of kindergartens has reached 239,800 in 2016 and is expected to expand into 294,000 by 2018 according to AskCI Consulting
Dec 5, China's early childhood education platform Zhang Tong Jia Yuan (掌通家园) announced that it had raised a USD 100 million in series D round led by Centurium Capital (大钲资本), a private equity firm and an early backer of Luckin Coffee(see this article).
Zhang Tong Jia Yuan has raised seven rounds of funding earlier. Its existing investors included ZhenFund, Sequoia Capital China, New Oriental Education & Tech Grp, etc.
YE Renqian (叶荏芊), the founder of Zhang Tong Jia Yuan, indicated that Zhang Tong Jia Yuan plans to use the fund to establish a more open platform and its own ecosystem, speeding up the process of building of a usable training tool for parents and teachers.
Before entering the education service industry, the company mainly provided safety and security hardware with its SaaS (Software as a service) application. In 2014, the company transformed into an interactive management platform with its core service being connecting parents with teachers through photos and videos of children.
In China, the number of kindergartens has reached 239,800 in 2016 and is expected to expand into 294,000 by 2018 according to AskCI Consulting. The profit volume of the market has reached more than RMB 200 billion. According to a report last year from HSBC Holdings Plc , Chinese parents spend an average total amount of USD 42,892 on their children from primary to university education, almost twice amount of countries like Canada or England.
Series of child abuse incidents happened at RYB Education and Ctrip's day-care center in Shanghai Last year aroused furious criticism and concerns towards kindergarten education. services Zhang Tong Jia Yuan providing are beneficial to ease such concerns and fit the pain points of the market.
Recent guidelines government unveiled on Nov 15 banning on private kindergartens to raise money from private equity is leading capital flocking to regulatory business.
ShiYu contributed to this article.