The development of online education industry has ushered in a boom, attracting many entrepreneurs and investors. Although BAT has not acquired education companies on a large scale, it has recently not only launched its own online education distribution platform, but also competed for quality education content. The platform layout of the three companies has begun to take shape, but each has its own characteristics. Some analysts believe that what Baidu wants to do is a platform. This is not a problem with the traffic accumulation of its Baidu library; Tencent mainly relies on its social tools, and its projects serve its WeChat. According to the current logic, Ali seems to be filling in the shortcomings he lacks.
In the future, giants such as BAT will continue to integrate more vertical education enterprises through mergers and acquisitions or shareholding, and lay out their own ecological education circle.
Let's take a look at the current layout of the Big Three in the field of education:
Baidu (the world's largest Chinese search engine)
Baidu's mission of "connecting people and services" covers all aspects, and its online education project basically serves the education platform it has established. Baidu's investment in educational enterprises is in the tens of millions, all of which are shares, not holding shares, and "not being the boss of entrepreneurs".
Baidu laid out the education market earlier and launched its own platform.
Baidu's layout in the online education market is relatively early. On 20 12 and 10, Baidu Library officially launched library courses, and in April of 20 13, learning.baidu.com, a foreign language training website, was launched, which was Baidu's initial exploration in the field of education.
20 13 In August, Baidu Education, an online course platform of Baidu, provided free live video or on-demand courses by resident educational institutions, covering vocational training, language training, IT training, primary and secondary education and other categories. At present, it has settled in education and training institutions such as CUHK Online School, Xueda Education and Zhonggong Online School. 20 14 1 Baidu education added the "Du Tangxue" module to provide courses in primary and secondary schools, IT and fine arts in the form of live broadcast.
2065438+In July 2004, Baidu Video joined hands with many educational institutions to launch Baidu Video Education Channel, which fully entered the online education market and covered genuine educational video courses on the market.
Zuoyebang
Homework help was launched on June 20 14, and it is called "Vertical Education Baidu Post Bar", which Baidu knows is an application specially made for primary and secondary school students. Functional sections include homework, student circle and newly launched video courses for famous teachers. In August this year, homework help was spun off from Baidu and renamed as a boat going out to sea. Lu Senlin, president of the Internet Education Research Institute, analyzed that the biggest purpose of homework help's move was to raise funds and finally package it for listing.
The educational enterprises invested by Baidu are:
M&A biography. As a branch channel.
20 13 June, Baidu made a series b investment of100,000 USD. In August of 20 14, Baidu officially acquired Chuanxue and renamed it "Baidu Chuanxue", with a valuation of nearly 30 million US dollars.
Chuanke. Com is a C2C online education platform, which was founded by Chief Technology Officer of Jinshan Company and Tong. The course delivery network is located in the field of primary and secondary education, mainly aiming at the K 12 exam-oriented market, introducing front-line teachers and adopting online interactive live broadcast and on-demand teaching methods. Business includes C2C course publishing and trading platform, payment service, online interactive classroom and IM service. The main products are teaching network, teaching KK and teaching network classroom.
At present, we can see that Baidu Teaching, as a branch channel of Baidu Education, has supplemented the content of Baidu online course sharing platform.
Invest in universal education and complement each other.
2065438+In July, 2004, Baidu made a C-round investment in Wanxue Education, amounting to tens of millions of dollars, and Wanxue owned Baidu's third-level domain name.
Wanxue Education was established in 2006 and officially put into operation in 2007. Is an educational institution for college students, providing training services such as postgraduate entrance examination, civil service recruitment examination and career development. It owns brands such as Wenhai Postgraduate Entrance Examination and Lu Jin Civil Servant. In February, 2008, Wanxue Education received a $20 million Series A financing from Sequoia Capital and Lenovo Group. On February 20 1 1, it was invested by DCM, Sequoia Capital, Lenovo Group Investment Company and Singapore Phoenix Fund for 20 million dollars.
Wanxue Education has rich offline resources, which can improve Baidu's closed-loop structure in the education market. Baidu has the advantages of Internet thinking and traffic, which is enough to help Wanxue Education bring offline resources online and realize the layout of online education O2O. The two can form a good complement.
Invest in Zhike.com to target the foreign language training market.
2065438+September 2004, Baidu invested 65438+0.06 billion dollars in Zhike A round. After this round of financing, the valuation of Zhike is close to $6543.8+$0 billion.
Zhike Com was launched on February 20 14. It was co-founded by Wei and Zhai Shaocheng, former executives of New Oriental. It is an online learning platform for overseas exams, providing students with famous teacher classes, popular question banks and free live lecture halls. Together with the brother product intelligence correction network launched on 20 13, it provides students with online learning closed-loop service integrating "learning+practice+management".
According to Maggie, investment director of Baidu, the investment in Zhike.com is based on the following two reasons: First, in online education, foreign language training is a big market with great industry prospects; Secondly, I took a fancy to a series of standardized products and service systems in Zhike.com, so that users can realize personalized teaching programs online. Baidu, with abundant capital and large flow, can expand its own camp through this move, and form a joint force with Zhike.com's teaching content research and development advantages and closed-loop service of online education.
Invest in Hujiang and expand business.
From 2065438 to September 2004, DCM, Baidu and Haoran Capital C invested 1 billion dollars in Hujiang, which was first disclosed by Fu Cairui, the founder of Hujiang, in February this year. At present, the valuation of Hujiang has reached $654.38+0 billion. It is reported that we are still negotiating a new round of financing with Baidu and actively preparing for the listing of A shares.
Hujiang. Com was founded on 200 1 and started to operate as a company in 2006. It is a large-scale Internet learning platform in China. Its businesses include Internet portal media, SNS community, B2C e-commerce and Hujiang Online School, the first online interactive learning platform in China. At the same time, Hujiang is also the only Internet education enterprise in Shanghai that has obtained the qualification of modern distance education directly issued by the Ministry of Education.
20 15, Hujiang.com changed its name to Hujiang, and its brand was upgraded. Hujiang will be the parent brand of the company, stringing together various business lines and defining the brand system: 1)Hujiang.com focuses on providing users with learning information; 2) Hujiang Community is a user-oriented professional learning community; 3) learning tools such as CCTalk, happy word field, small D dictionary, listening to cool, etc. 4) Two learning platforms: the recording and broadcasting platform "Hujiang Online School" and the live broadcast platform "CC Classroom".
Alibaba
As we all know, Ma Yun has a strong teacher plot, and Ali's layout on the online education side should not be underestimated. Ali does not lack a platform, but the vertical segmentation field is not excellent, which is also Ma Yun's investment logic in the field of education.
Ali has his own education platform-Taobao classmate (education)
In 20 13, Ali launched Taobao students, built a hybrid (2B+2C) education platform with live interactive operation mode, and gathered educational institutions, teachers, courses and other resources. Taobao students have a series of recorded and live courses. Institutions can provide teaching resources, and users can also publish courses themselves or apply for online live broadcast. Because the online education at that time was not orderly, the original intention of Taobao students was to integrate the online education market.
In May of this year, Taobao changed its name to Taobao Education, using the advantages of the platform to help offline institutions transform into online institutions. At present, there are 150 training institutions such as Global Online School, Hujiang Education and yomi Network, and the courses are mainly online video courses.
The educational enterprises invested by Ali are:
Invest in TutorGroup to build a content system outside the platform.
2065438+In February 2004, Alibaba announced that it, Singapore Temasek Company and Qiming Chuangtou * * * had raised $6,543.8 billion in Series B financing for TutorGroup, the parent company of online English learning platform VIPABC.
It is understood that the TutorGroup where VIPABC is located was established in 2004. It is a platform dedicated to online learning business. It was founded by two brothers, Yang Meng and Yang Ming, and its research and development headquarters is located in Silicon Valley. TutorGroup has four brands, besides VIPABC for Chinese mainland, there are two English teaching brands TutorABC and TutorABC Jr, and TutorMing Chinese teaching brand. VIPABC is a real online English learning platform. According to the needs of professionals, the teaching material system is established through crowdsourcing mode. 20 12 in may, TutorGroup completed the financing of Qi Ming venture capital150,000 USD.
According to relevant data, the annual sales of Alibaba Taobao course in 20 13 is 200 million yuan, which is far from exerting the power of Taobao. I believe that the parent company that led the investment in VIPABC also wanted to establish its own content system outside Ali's existing platform. In addition, due to Ali's intervention, VIPABC's position in the industry has indeed improved, and Yao Ming, the spokesperson, has been welcomed, and the publicity of various scenes is also in place.
Guide the investment in super courses and attach importance to the social market of student education.
On June 20 14, it won tens of millions of dollars in Series B financing from the super curriculum, which was led by Alibaba.
The super curriculum was established in August 20 12, and was founded by Yu Jiawen. It is a course and social application for college students. By docking the educational administration system of colleges and universities, courses can be quickly entered into mobile phones, and inter-departmental classes can be realized in schools. On August 27th, 20 13, the super curriculum was invested by Xu Xiaoping Zhenge Fund for millions of RMB. 20 12 12 was invested by Shenzhen innovation valley angel.
Super curriculum quickly became popular because Yu Jiawen wanted to give employees a profit of 654.38 billion yuan. Many people commented that Ali's investment was "stubborn". Ali, who has a complete scientific system to evaluate a team and a product, may invest in a super curriculum, and may value the student social market as an O2O entrance to Alibaba's local life.
Tencent
Tencent's own educational platform-Tencent classroom
20/KLOC-In April, 2004, Tencent launched Tencent Classroom, an online course distribution platform, which aggregated educational institutions, teachers and course resources to provide QQ users with courses such as language learning, skills training, textual research and grade examination. After registering for the course, users can directly listen to the live course through QQ group and discuss with other students. Tencent also launched an online payment function for QQ group. As an open platform, Tencent Classroom plans to help offline educational institutions settle in and explore new online education models.
Educational enterprises invested by Tencent:
Established an online education company with New Oriental, and launched a product excellent answer.
20 14 In July, Tencent and New Oriental * * * established the online education company "Micro Learning Tomorrow", and launched the online question and answer product "You Ah" in February, 65438. Excellent answer is a product of question bank+answer, which tends to provide more intelligent English training for every student without increasing the burden on students. In the future, A will enter all subjects, allowing students to complete their studies in a purely online environment.
As an intelligent learning platform, New Oriental itself does not have such technology, but Tencent has accumulated many years of live broadcast technology, which is very mature and may expect more mobile online education products in the future.
Invest in cross-examination education and improve the ecological chain
2065438+In August, 2004, the Cross-examination Education won a series B investment of 30 million yuan from Tencent Fund, and the Group changed its name to Wise Education and entered the online vocational education market.
Cross-examination education was established in 2004. It is a comprehensive education service group integrating postgraduate entrance examination, MBA, professional master and examination training, network service, book publishing and high-end personalized counseling, with cross-school, cross-professional examination and professional master as the main body.
Cross-examination education cuts into the postgraduate entrance examination market in the traditional way, and offline operation ability is the most basic lifeline, but the impact of the Internet has brought more imagination.
Investing in the easy question bank to make up for the short board of the group's teacher flow.
On 20 15, 15, Tencent Industrial Fund invested tens of millions of yuan in the A round of Easy Question Bank, which was used to accumulate teachers and subject resources, as well as technical update and talent recruitment.
The easy question bank was launched on March 20 14, which is an intelligent test system for selecting topics and generating papers, and belongs to the question bank product in online education.
The main business of Tencent Industry Win Fund is to incubate and acquire high-quality enterprises and build Tencent's ecological chain. Obviously, the main purpose of Tencent's investment in e-question bank is to see the development prospect of e-question bank and build its own ecological chain. The teacher's traffic is Tencent's short board and the leading entrance for teachers and users. Easy question bank can make full use of the traffic brought by Tencent and stand out from many question bank products.
Investing in crazy teachers has long been optimistic about the education O2O platform.
2065438+June 2005, Tencent made a B round investment in Crazy Teachers, and took the first step in the field of education O2O. After this round of financing, the valuation of Crazy Teacher is 1 100 million USD.
Crazy Teacher is a mobile Internet-based O2O extracurricular tutoring information service platform for primary and secondary schools. It opens up online and offline links, allowing users to choose teachers online and go to school offline, eliminating the intermediary fees and third-party fees of traditional offline institutions, aiming to help parents find suitable teachers. It is reported that Mad teacher completed the angel round financing in June 20 14, and then received tens of millions of A round investment from capital partner Yang and Tencent vice president Wu.
Since the beginning of this year, tutoring O2O has continued to be favored by the capital market. The vigorous development of such enterprises actually coincides with the trend of "disintermediation" of the Internet. Tencent has been active in the field of O2O before, and investing in crazy teachers is its first step in the field of O2O education.