Online education and tutoring has got a major push because of the pandemic situation in 2020. More and more edutech companies are now finding opportunities to expand their services and are getting investors’ interest.
Korean EduTech startup Ringle English Education Service Co., Ltd. (Ringle), a member company of Born2Global Centre, recently announced that it has secured $ 8.9 million in investments. The Series A round funding was led by Must Asset Management. The latest investment, that makes the company’s corporate value to $89 million, will help it accelerate its progress.
In June 2021, Ringle closed the Series A round with total of $18 million. The investment was led by Must Asset Management and other investors included One-asset management, Xoloninvest, and MoCA Ventures.
Providing English learning from Ivy league tutors
Ringle’s platform is 1:1 video English tutoring service that provides students with real-time corrections in English on the latest current trends and business issues through lessons with Ivy League tutors. Ringle has 700 tutors from prestigious US/UK universities, offers 300 high-quality digital textbooks, educational webinars by specialist tutors with expertise in each field, on/offline career seminars on studying abroad & foreign employment, AI-based feedback report, and more.
Ringle’s revenue has grown three times every year since its founding and currently the company has over 100,000 users, 30% of whom are based outside of Korea. Lessons bookings increased by 390% in comparison with the previous year.Ringle tutors are often high-achieving professionals and academics able to share knowledge and career experience. Ringle students include those from global companies like Google, Amazon, BCG, McKinsey, Samsung Electronics, etc.
Ringle’s teaching materials and content have been created by its most high performing tutors and Stanford, Harvard and Berkeley graduates. Ringle’s 1:1 video learning & diagnosis system has been developed in collaboration with KAIST’s (Korea Advanced Institute of Science & Technology) HCI (Human Computer Interaction) research team.
Ringle’s main target audience is the pool of domestic adult English learners and non-English-speaking office workers & higher education students. Recently, Ringle is also getting interest of high number of junior students. Ringle currently has more than 10,000 paying customers and is providing its English education services within South Korea, the US, Japan and Europe.
Ringle is planning to strengthen its lead within the EduTech market by intensively investing its Series A funding in highly proactive recruiting and service & content development within its US subsidiary, in order to further its advancement of its tutors, content, technology & learning systems.
Strong year-on-year growth
Ringle has offices in South Korea and the US. Ringle has continued to grow more than 300% year-on-year since its establishment in 2015, mainly through strong word-of-mouth advertising and student testimonials. Ringle’s Co-CEOs, Seunghun Lee and Sungpah Lee, believe that Ringle holds a competitive edge over other EduTech startups that have recently become global education unicorns in the US and China. In 2021, the Ringle platform has recorded over 50% repurchase rate from its users. The company will expand offline spaces in South Korea and the U.S. where tutors and students can meet face-to-face, hold and attend seminars, study and develop content together.
Accordingly, Ringle intends to grow 5 times more year-on-year and surpass Unicorn status to become a Decacorn within 2 to 3 years. Ringle is expanding in all areas: from adults to juniors, from English to other subjects, and beyond Asia into the global market. It aspires to create world-class educational services by drawing upon the knowledge and insights of tutors from the US and UK’s top 30 universities.
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