Education technology startup Mathpresso has raised $14.5 million in a series-B funding round in one of the biggest early-stage fundraising deals out of South Korea so far this year.
The funding round also stands out because it was led by Legend Capital, the venture capital arm of China’s Legend Holdings, which owns Lenovo, the world’s largest computer maker.
Although no precise data is available, Chinese investment into Korean startups is known to be relatively rare.
Four year-old Mathpresso is also one of only handful of Korean companies to have raised more than $10 million in a private funding round in recent times.
In general, Korea lags behind other Asian countries such as China, Singapore and India when it comes to venture capital investment as the country's dominant family-owned conglomerates leave little room for small companies to grow.
The previous $10 million-plus private funding round out of Korea – mobility startup Code42’s W30 billion ($25 million) pre-A round – involved all-Korean investors including Kia Motors, SK, LG and CJ.
Mathpresso did not disclose the identity of its other co-investors.
Legend Capital’s investment into Mathpresso could boost the confidence of other would-be investors because the Chinese VC fund has a strong track record of identifying good-quality startups.
Legend was an early investor in Luckin Coffee, the super-charged Chinese coffee chain that listed in the US after completing a $510 million IPO in May.
It was the world’s first company to list on any stock market just two years after it was founded.
The VC fund was also an early investor in Zhenkunhang, the Chinese industrial product supplier that raised close to $300 million within 10 months earlier this year, bringing in other high-profile investors like Tencent in the process.
Legend has also invested in pharmaceutical startup Harbour BioMed, customer service outsourcing firm Udesk and e-commerce startup Aikucun, among others.
It now joins the likes of Softbank Ventures Asia, Samsung Ventures and Mirae Asset Management as a financial backer of Mathpresso.
AN APP CALLED QANDA
Mathpresso is an educational data platform where students can ask tutors questions and search for solutions just by taking a photo.
The startup runs an app called Qanda – literally stands for Q and A – that it claims has more than one million users in Korea alone. The app uses AI-based optical character recognition to scan maths problems. It also allows students to get instructions from tutors.
Apart from mathematics, Mathpresso also supports tutorials in other subjects like Korean history, social studies and science.
Mathpresso has been exploring other Asian markets since 2017. Its app is now available in Korean, Japanese, English, Vietnamese and Indonesian. It claims the service is available in more than 50 countries.
“We strongly believe that Mathpresso has the technological and operational capabilities to expand overseas and grasp new opportunities emerging from the digitisation of education, such as offering personalised learning for each individual student,” Legend Capital managing director Joon Sung Park said in a statement.
