Online Education Platform Onion Math Closes Series D Funding of USD 45 Million

Author: Linyan Feng Apr 25, 2019 03:10 PM (GMT+8)

Online education platform Onion Math announced that the company has completed its Series D funding of CNY 300 million (USD 45 million) in Feb. The investment is led by Primavera Capital Group and Kunlun Tech.

Person holding pencil near laptop computer. Photo by Helloquence on Unsplash

April 25, 2019/ EqualOcean/- Online education platform Onion Math announced that the company has completed its Series D funding of CNY 300 million (USD 45 million) in Feb. The investment is led by Primavera Capital Group and followed by Kunlun Tech, taking the total investment value to approximately CNY 600 million (USD 90 million).

The fundraising will be used in online education research and artificial intelligence application to popularize AI-driven customized education.

In early 2018, Onion Math completed a Series C investment round of CNY 120 million (USD 17 million), led by Tencent Holdings (00700.HK) and Legend Capital.

Harvard graduate YANG Linfeng (杨临风) and former technology senior executive of Sinovation Venture LI Nuo (李诺) co-founded the company in 2013. The company provides online lessons to Chinese youth in primary and secondary schools.

The online lessons that Onion Math offers are different from other traditional online lessons that record teachers’ teaching process. The firm creates interesting and creative animation videoes instead.

Each lesson explains complex mathematical theories and equations in five to eight minutes and trains students to solve math problems through smart interactive questions in the middle of the lessons and after that.

Aside from math, the firm had a move into other subjects including physics, Chinese and English.

Free courses represent 50% of the total courses on the platform. Users only need to pay less than CNY 50 for premium courses monthly. Average watching time has achieved more than 150 million minutes for each lesson and 70% of users have learned all their courses, according to YANG.

The platform registered 20 million students and 600 thousand teachers, covering 150 thousand primary and secondary schools in more than 2,800 cities in China. Second-tier cities and the rural area represent approx. 65% of the registration.

Onion Match is a pioneer in deploying machine learning, big data, AI to apply in adaptive learning and customized education. The company established its AI labs in early 2017 and worked out its AI creative learning system.

AI technology can bring student-driven active learning by designing dynamic learning strategy, sending customized content, answering questions automatically and adaptive practicing, according to the firm.

The platform, however, does not intend to replace teachers. It provides AI teaching assistant for teachers to conduct creative teaching. The company also offers smart class solutions to manage education practice class, teaching resources, big data analysis with technology for schools.

The company has collected more than 20 billion records of learning data from students’ habits as they watch the videos and practicing.