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.
MagicEars, the Beijing-based English language tutoring start-up, has raised $6m in first round funding from the Bob Xu ZhenEdu Fund and online tutoring company Yuanfudao. MagicEars will use the funds to develop its teaching and research platform. Launched last March MagicEars teaches English to Chinese students aged five to 12 via virtual classes. The firm is also working with a number of universities around China on developing their own versions of the technology.