With New Oriental leading the round, Xigua Chuangke has managed to raise CNY 150 million.
Online children's programming education firm, Xigua chuangke (西瓜创客) announced yesterday that it has raised CNY 150 million in its B round of financing. The round was led by New Oriental (新东方), SAIF Partners (赛富基金), Baicizhan (百词斩/薄荷阅读), old shareholders Sequoia Capital China (红杉资本中国), and Matrix Partners China (经纬中国), with Lighthouse capital (光源资本) as the financial advisor.
In addition, Xigua chuangke also released the "X Plan" (X计划) strategy, which focuses on the three dimensions of curriculum, technology and user service, through the continuous empowerment of curriculum development, AI dual-teacher classroom and community-based learning experience, hence empowering children to comprehensively enhance their future-oriented capabilities.
This round of financing will also be used to further improve the LEAP curriculum system, promote learning evaluation based on “AI+ Big Data” and upgrade the teaching intelligent assistant system to build an active community.
Xigua chuangke was established in January 2017, mainly focused on online children's programming education for primary school students aged 6-12. Since its establishment, the number of users has exceeded 1 million, covering 60 countries and 483 cities.
In recent years children's programming education sector has been very hot. Even with a low capital environment, this year qiute a few programming education companies managed to raise funds over CNY 100 million, such as Codemao, XiaoMaWang, Hetao, Xigua chuangke etc. However, the current children's programming track is still in the early stages of development, there is a lack of quality teachers, lack of standardization of curriculum system and a couple of other major issues.
Minhong Yu (俞敏洪) founder and CEO of New Oriental said, "Computer language has become a new universal skill that people must learn. Most of the children will have to deal with computers in the future. Xigua chuangke helps children learn how to program, understand and integrate technology into their future industries."
He further added, "We believe in the competitiveness and investment potential of Xigua chuangke's creative team, teaching product and business model."