Edupia raises Series A to close the education gap in Vietnam

There is a large education gap between urban centers and smaller cities and rural areas in Vietnam. Private tutoring and live classes are offered on the platform. The startup announced today that it has raised over $13 million in a Series A led by Jungle. The funding has increased to $16 million.

There are 5 million users and 400,000 paying students on the site. The company is on track to exceed its revenue target in the next three years according to the founder. The majority of its users are in Vietnam, but it is also expanding into other Southeast Asian markets like Indonesia, Thailand andMyanmar.

He was the director of digital services at Viettel for 10 years. He saw how the internet was changing many aspects of daily life. The educational resources available in larger, wealthier cities, like private language centers, and other areas of Vietnam, are not always in English. A platform was launched to make English education accessible to every K-12 student.

The author is standing against a desk.

The team saw demand for more ways to engage with students as the business gained traction. The first point of contact for users will be self- learning before they upgrade to classes and tutoring.

School partnerships, word-of-mouth referrals, and key opinion leader marketing are some of the ways in which parents and students find the company. It was the first company in the market to create a network of thousands of micro-KOLs in different industries.

While there are many English-learning apps available, Hung said that Edupia does not compete directly with them because it aims to give students a similar experience to offline learning centers, with teachers who assign homework, evaluate students' progress and organize online activities to increase engagement. It was able to scale quickly because it was an offline learning center. Each teacher has the ability to manage up to 2,000 students across the country.

The tutoring platform will be upgraded with part of the new capital. The company plans to hire senior managers as it ramps up its international expansion.

Edtech startups flock to the promise and potential of personalized learning