US education startup Gotit!, that has ops in Vietnam, snaps up over $9m Series A

By Nguyen Thi Bich Ngoc

April 29, 2016

US education startup GotIt!, which has set up operations in Vietnam, announced that it has raised over $9 million in seed and series A funding to help it build on its on demand platform for knowledge.

The series A round was for the startup – which has a Vietnamese co-founder Hung Tran – was led by Dipender Saluja, managing director of Capricorn Investment Group, the backer of breakthrough ideas like Tesla Motors, QuantumScape and Planet Labs. Meanwhile, Brad Bao, who was formerly responsible for Chinese investment firm Tencent’s US operation, led the seed round on behalf of Fosun Group.

“Capricorn’s DNA is our kind of DNA: breakthrough impact, innovative technology, and of course, marketplaces,” GotIt co-founder Peter Relan wrote in a Medium post.

GotIt was incubated by Relan’s Youweb Inc, which provided the education startup with $120,000 as per the incubation programme. Relan was asked to be a co-founder and executive chairman.

GotIt is a marketplace for interactive learning through an instant 10 minute chat or messaging session with an expert.

One of the top 10 education app on Appstore,  is targets teenagers, who often get stuck with “late nights, procrastination and deadlines”. Thus, instead of consuming time googling or trying to find the “go-to” student, teenage learners will be matched with experts who will be fired if they just provide answers without explanation, or provide wrong explanation.

Hung Tran estimated the size of this teenager segment of the education market at 15 million users in the US and 30 million users in Europe, the targeted markets of the app.

GotIt has set up an office in Vietnam in a bid to hire local talented engineers, making sure the operation runs 24/24, according to the Vietnamese founder.

The startup is continuing hiring teams for its expansion, partly in order to realize its goal for the next year of combining artificial intelligence bots with its knowledge base and experts.

“Interaction in general, is an innate need  –  the explosion of messaging platforms proves this. Seems obvious in retrospect, that learning too needs to be short burst, interactive, on-demand,” Relan wrote.

Also read:

India: Housing co-founder Advitiya Sharma launches education start-up Genius

India: Test prep platform OliveBoard raises funding from education-focussed IEIF

Australia’s booming education sector lures investors, boon to economy

 

Singapore Reporter/s

In Singapore, we are looking to double our reporting team by this year-end to comprehensively cover the fast-moving world of funded startups and VC, PE & M&A deals. We want reporters who can tell our readers what is really happening in these sectors and why it matters to markets, companies and consumers. The ability to write precisely and urgently is crucial for these roles. Ideal candidates must have to ability to work in a collaborative, dynamic, and fast-changing environment. We want our new hires to be digitally savvy and ready to experiment with new forms of storytelling. Most importantly, we are looking for hard-hitting reporters who work well in a team. Collaboration and collegiality are a must.

Following vacancies can be applied for (only in Singapore).

Following vacancies can be applied for (only in Singapore).   

  • A reporter to track companies/startups that have raised private capital, and have the potential to become unicorns. SEA currently has over 40 companies with a valuation of over $100 million and under $1 billion.
  • A reporter who can get behind the scenes and reveal how funding rounds are put together, or why they’ve failed to materialise. She/he in this role will largely focus on long-format stories. 
  • A journalist to track special situations funds, distressed debt and private credit (from the PE angle) across Asia.
APPLY NOW

Singapore Reporter/s

In Singapore, we are looking to double our reporting team by this year-end to comprehensively cover the fast-moving world of funded startups and VC, PE & M&A deals. We want reporters who can tell our readers what is really happening in these sectors and why it matters to markets, companies and consumers. The ability to write precisely and urgently is crucial for these roles. Ideal candidates must have to ability to work in a collaborative, dynamic, and fast-changing environment. We want our new hires to be digitally savvy and ready to experiment with new forms of storytelling. Most importantly, we are looking for hard-hitting reporters who work well in a team. Collaboration and collegiality are a must.

Following vacancies can be applied for (only in Singapore).

Following vacancies can be applied for (only in Singapore).   

  • A reporter to track companies/startups that have raised private capital, and have the potential to become unicorns. SEA currently has over 40 companies with a valuation of over $100 million and under $1 billion.
  • A reporter who can get behind the scenes and reveal how funding rounds are put together, or why they’ve failed to materialise. She/he in this role will largely focus on long-format stories. 
  • A journalist to track special situations funds, distressed debt and private credit (from the PE angle) across Asia.
APPLY NOW