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Riiid, a South Korea-headquartered AI-powered edtech firm, acquired its Japanese distribution accomplice Langoo to develop its Japan footprint.
The acquisition comes after the corporate’s newest $175 million Collection D spherical from SoftBank’s Imaginative and prescient Fund 2 in Could. Riiid has stated it should proceed to gas its world growth with the funding.
Langoo, Riiid’s accomplice in Japan, presents Riiid Tutor, previously referred to as Santa, a check prep app for the English-language proficiency check TOEIC within the area. Riiid claims that greater than 2.5 million customers downloaded the Riiid Tutor app in South Korea and Japan. When it launched in April 2019 in Japan, the Riiid Tutor app took the highest rating in gross sales amongst training purposes in Android inside the first week of its launch.
“The distinctive capability of Langoo in its native enterprise with Riiid Tutor was the principle motive for this acquisition,” stated co-founder and CEO of Riiid YJ Jang. “Riiid’s power is our scalability and skill to use our expertise wherever, no matter areas, languages and domains. By leveraging this funding, we are going to seize broader Japanese market alternatives. This acquisition is step one in an inorganic technique to finally apply Riiid’s AI expertise to the worldwide market and assist extra learners around the globe.”
Japan is likely one of the largest training markets and has huge potential to develop within the Japanese edtech business that also depends on the standard in-person training system, a spokesperson at Riiid informed TechCrunch. After penetrating the Japanese market, Riiid will gear as much as enter different worldwide areas, together with Central and East Asia, the spokesperson added.
The Japanese distant studying business was estimated at $2.6 billion in 2020, growing 22.4% yr on yr, based mostly on a report by Yano Analysis Institute.
Riiid plans to shore up advertising and marketing, gross sales and B2B enterprise improvement in Japan by establishing a Japanese unit by way of the acquisition. The corporate expects to handle native distant studying and training out there.
In Japan, Riiid will provide its companies, starting from the TOEIC to English talking and tutoring companies, to broaden its buyer base.
Riiid has been actively penetrating the worldwide market since 2020 after it opened the U.S. arm, Riiid Labs, in Silicon Valley. Riiid additionally has customers in Vietnam and Taiwan, and just lately sealed a partnership take care of an India-based AI edtech firm, the spokesperson stated. It is about to open an R&D middle in Canada, the spokesperson added.
Past the TOEIC cellular app, the corporate launched an ACT prep cellular app with ConnectMe Training in early 2021 in Egypt, Turkey, UAE, Jordan and Saudi Arabia. It additionally unveiled the GMAT beta model, in partnership with Kaplan, in 2021, aiming on the Korean market first. Within the first quarter of 2022, Riiid is scheduled to launch Riiid Classroom, an AI-based resolution that gives academics a formative evaluation and studying program. Its key options embody particular person efficiency evaluation, lecture suggestions based mostly on particular person college students’ weaknesses, dropout evaluation and job administration.
Riiid offers AI-based on-line training options for Ok-12, post-secondary and company coaching. Based in 2014, it has roughly 210 workers globally, together with South Korea, the U.S, the U.Ok., Canada, Brazil, and Vietnam.
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