Walnut Education cracks about $200m fundraising as it ramps up tech use

Walnut Education, a Chinese online coding education, said on Thursday that it has raised approximately $200 million in series C round of financing, as the company continues to beef up its efforts in technology.

The new round was led by KKR, Vision Plus Capital and Hillhouse Capital's GL Ventures and attracted previous investors including Huaxing Growth Capital and Source Code Capital.

With the new fundraising, Walnut Education announced its strategy of "all in education technology", where it will develop its AI teaching products, high-quality teachers, and teaching and research systems.

"The company has been leveraging technology to achieve large-scale teaching to students based on their own characteristics. We hope that every child loves to learn and knows how to learn and that high-quality education is accessible to everyone," said Zeng Pengxuan, founder and CEO of Walnut Education.

Since its establishment in 2017, the company has accumulated 3.2 million paid users as of March this year. According to a latest survey of Euromonitor, for every 10 children who learn to code online, six are from Walnut Education.

Zhang Yang, head of growing technology investment at KKR Greater China, said: "The importance of quality education in the education system has gradually increased, and the rapid development of technology and economy has also accelerated the penetration of children's coding education."