The Top 5 EdTech Players in Asia – 2021

As we enter 2021, here we look at the top 5 EdTech players in Asia that have shown remarkable growth and resilience.

Across Asia, the EdTech companies are striving to educate communities through their online learning platforms and apps. These companies are ensuring that education is never halted and students get the knowledge and help they deserve. This has been true especially during this ongoing pandemic. Here are the top 5 EdTech companies in Asia in no specific order.

XSEED Education

This Singapore-based educational platform was founded by Ashish Rajpal, a Harvard alumni. This EdTech Company provides an innovative method of learning and teaching. XSEED Education uses five-step experiential learning approach and provides training to more than a million children with its various assessment programs and integrated curriculum for K-8 schools. The company has been featured among the top educational innovations in the world in ‘Learning Reimagined’. XSEED Education is funded by a Belgium-based international venture firm, Verlinvest and an Indian investment firm, Lighhouse Funds. In 2019, the company acquired Report Bee, a domestic EdTech startup for an undisclosed amount. 

Byju’s

Byju, an India-based startup was founded by Mr. Byju Raveendran in 2015. The company focusses on school children and make the learning process easy to understand with use of animation. Byju’s mainly focusses on Math and Science and has presently over 3.5 crore registered students in the country. It is one of the fastest growing startup promoted by Bollywood Celebrity Shahrukh Khan and has an average usage of more than 1 hour per student. The company raised a whopping $200 million in funding in November 2020 which has raised its valuation to $12 billion. Byju’s is backed by Marquee Investors like Tencent, Sequoia Capital, Chan Zuckerberg, etc.

Zenius

Indonesia-based, Zenius Education founded in 2004 provides online learning solutions with a focus on scientific reasoning and understanding concepts. The company aims to help Indonesians to develop competency in a profound understanding of the concepts through scientific inquiry and not by just memorizing. The company’s website offers exercises and videos to students in high school as well as elementary school across the country. Zenius has even launched an English-based website for its bilingual students. The company has recently secured an undisclosed amount funding in January 2021 from Openspace Ventures, Alpha JWC Ventures along with its existing investors Kinesys, Beenext, and Northstar.

Zuoyebang

Zuoyebang founded in 2014 is a China-based EdTech company that provides educational content to both primary and high school students. Zuoyebang uses artificial intelligence and allows its students to research and find answers for their homework tasks. The company provides live lessons and online courses for K-12 students. By autumn 2020, the company’s paid livestream classes reached more than 10 million users. In December 2020, the company has raised $1.6 billion from Alibaba Group and other investors including Softbank Vision Fund, Tiger Global Management, FountainVest Partners, and Sequoia Capital China.

Topica 

Topica promotes high-quality online education in South East Asia. Topica Uni specializes in online bachelor degrees by partnering with 16 universities including top-tier institutions in the United States. Vietnam and Philippines. Topica Native offers English speech tutoring classes in Vietnam, Indonesia, and Thailand. It was the first company across the globe to launch an augmented reality app for speech tutoring. The company’s largest platform, Topica Edumail offers short-skill courses in Vietnam and Thailand that provides video-learning content. Headquartered at Hanoi, Vietnam, the Topica EdTech Group has expanded into Singapore, Philippines, Indonesia, Thailand, and the United States.  Topica EdTech Group is funded by 8 investors; with latest investment by the Northstar Group for US$50 million in 2018.

EdTech companies are continuously redefining themselves and are evolving to provide more personalized study programs, project-based learnings, and student-centric activities by engaging them through critical thinking and problem solving assignments which are often based on real world issues. These companies have leveraged modern technologies to their advantage and are making a firm ground for themselves. The upsurge of the EdTech industry especially during this pandemic shows that EdTech companies are here to stay.

Please feel free to drop a note @ [email protected] if you think some other company needs to make this list.