The Beijing-based coding education company’s strategic round was led by Beijing Shengtong.
According to the company, the new round will be used to form cooperative programs with online robot programing education company Roborobo (乐博乐博), which is a subsidiary of Shengtong. In terms of customer acquisition models, the two firms will form an integrated model combining online and offline, to further reduce costs. In terms of course products, VIPCODE will keep focusing on software programming, while Roborobo will focus on intelligent hardware robot programming. The two parties will further cooperate to create educational products that combine software and hardware to increase the ‘stickiness’ and interest of the courses for students. In terms of course delivery, the two sides will forge a new model of OMO (online moves offline) maker education product delivery, offering students a variety of options to attend classes at home or at a learning center.
Founded in December 2017, VIPCODE ushers teenagers and younger children into the world of programming. With nearly 2 million registered users and more than 15,000 paying users, the company mainly provides two online education products, VIPCODE online programming for children and VIPCODE online programming for schools. In terms of courses, the startup provides one on one, one to four, one to many live classes and many other kinds of courses making it one of the few online education companies in the industry that can provide comprehensive systematic programming courses.
With the strategic investment in VIPCODE, Shengtong looks to further expand its education business territory, forming a comprehensive quality-oriented education platform combining online and offline, hardware and software.
Talking about the strategic investment, the founder of VIPCODE said: “Shengtong's persistent investment in education is the basis of this cooperation. We thank Shengtong for recognizing VIPCODE, and we hope that the two parties’ cooperation goes beyond the aspect of capital and in the future, we can together develop OMO practices in the field of quality education.”
Regarding the same topic, Jia Chunlin (贾春琳), Chairman of Shengtong said, “Children’s online programming is an area that the company has always attached great importance to. Last April, Roborobo launched its own online teaching courses, and this time Strategic investment in VIPCODE will further strengthen the company's online programming education layout. In the future, Roborobo and VIPCODE will continue the collaborative development of the business.”
To date the VIPCODE has a total of three rounds of investments is backed by strong investors such as Zhen Fund, Sinovation Ventures, Blue Lake Capital and SBCVC.
In addition, this cooperation comes in a critical period. Due to the epidemic, many offline institutions are looking to transform into online providers. In order to support more offline STEAM education institutions to transform online, VIPCODE also simultaneously released the ‘VIPCODE Cloud Lesson Plan,’ which will independently develop a live teaching platform and a complete set of free programming courses for offline institutions.