Taiwan’s QLL, a mobile app startup that makes language learning apps for children under six years old, today revealed it closed a US$450,000 round led by B Dash Ventures, with participation from Taiwan’s Pinehurst Advisors, Singapore’s Coent Venture Partners, and Viling and Incubate Fund from Japan. The deal was finalized in September but not disclosed until today.
QLL’s apps aren’t well-known outside Taiwan, partially due to the age of their target users, but the company has been around since 2007. Founders Lulu and Bob Yeh originally conceived of QLL as a hardware company that would sell devices to Chinese language learners, with pre-installed software that corrected one’s pronunciation. But the coming wave of of smartphones led to a pivot towards apps, as well as a shift from Chinese language learners abroad to English language learners in Taiwan.
“Back in 2007, when we went out and went to electronic trade shows to show off our hardware device, people just told us to put our content on the Blackberry, which at the time was quite hot. They then advised us to focus on what we were experts on, which was content, and not hardware. Once the iPad and iPhone came out, we started to learn how to create apps,” Yeh tells Tech in Asia.
QLL’s pivot wasn’t exactly smooth sailing. For a time, the company released dozens of storybook-esque language-learning apps in hopes that one would catch fire – these were the early days of app stores, when the rules on how to win hadn’t yet been written. While volume is still a core part of QLL’s business, the company now focuses its efforts on monetizing its aggregate apps, namely Bilingual Audio Story, which lets users complete and unlock its broader suite of storybooks. When children finish working their way through one book, they’ll be rewarded with virtual coins, which they can redeem for additional content. Shell out cash for more virtual coins, and you’ll get even more content.
For adult Tech in Asia readers who get their language kicks on sexy apps like Duolingo, QLL’s alternatives might look rather lo-fi. From the Courier typeface, to the push-and-play interface, to the ringtone-esque sound effects, it’s perhaps more accurate to think of QLL as a content company rather than a tech company (not that there’s anything wrong with that). Pinehurst’s Mark Hsu says that that QLL has shunned polish in order to deliver what Asia’s parents want – English language learning apps that are easy to use, and that mommy and daddy can wrap their heads around.
“When it comes to edutech, I’m of the camp that feels what’s going on in Asia is different from what’s going on in the US. For Asia, you’ve got Kahn Academy and Coursera and all of these people that believe technology is disrupting education. In Asia, you have to solve different problems,” he says. “From an investor’s perspective, [Yeh] has done relatively well in a small market, so we think that if she’s placed in a bigger market, something interesting could happen.”
Editing by Paul Bischoff, image by Alvin Chen
This post Taiwanese education app startup QLL nabs $450k in funding from B Dash Ventures appeared first on Tech in Asia.
Taiwanese education app startup QLL nabs $450k in funding from B Dash Ventures
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