Online education entrepreneur is about to become a new target for BAT merger

After a large number of online education start-ups in 2013, the boom lasted 2014 years, and many even predicted that online education would usher in an investment boom this year.

But is it really that optimistic? With a number of investors and practitioners to communicate, the author found that online education 2014 years of entrepreneurial environment will still be the tide, a large number of entrepreneurial projects will remain in the angel wheel and a round, and the pay for it is mainly the traditional educational institutions.

BAT, then, is hiding in the farther of the B round C-round waiting for the harvest, such as Ali's recent joint investment of 100 million dollars to VIPABC parent company is an example.

More to the concern, after 2013 years of exploration, instead of finding a quick and replicable model, educational entrepreneurs are waiting for BAT's entry, as well as the emergence of traditional educational institutions self-renewal (such as the recent independence of New Oriental online) and the rise of the first founders, the online education business environment is becoming grim.

Please see below for details.

1.2014 of online education is still a big wave.

One investor described the business of online education in the 2014: New Oriental lost dozens of principals and vice presidents last year, and each of them, with an Internet connection, was able to form an online education program, and each project would produce an angel wheel or a round.

And these people are the star entrepreneurs in the circle, more entrepreneurs are unknown "cock Silk" entrepreneur, its success rate is lower.

According to a statistic, the number of online education enterprises that were added every day in 2013 was 2.6, which increased in 2014. The head of a good future investment says he now sees three to four online educational entrepreneurs every day.

Mr Yu, the new Oriental chairman, also said in a public speech:

"There are now about 2000 companies, research platforms and content firms and startups that have been looking for me to invest or discuss, with at least 30 each month," said the company. ”

Obviously, the vast majority of these thousands of projects are not reliable. Therefore, if the summary of online education 2014 entrepreneurial Situation, is the vast majority of projects still stay in the trial and error stage, such as 2013 years of chalk net-> apes, 91 foreign teachers-> ladder nets, this is a wave of the process of sand, thousands of items only very few boutique can grow up.

2. Traditional educational institutions do angel a round, bat cut B round C round.

So who's paying for these projects? In addition to professional investment institutions, traditional educational institutions contribute the most.

And bat although shout is lively, but actually all far hide in B round C round, for example:

Alibaba completed its first investment in education after the Spring Festival: Invest 100 million dollars with Temasek and qiming to tutorgroup the online educational institutions;

Baidu was the last year to complete a network of nets millions of dollars investment;

As for Tencent, in the public information level, the investment in education is still zero.

Traditional educational institutions are much more pressing than the choice of internet companies, and a traditional educational institution investor says:

"We have to start with the Angel and the A, because when we get to the B round C, bat will be there and they have a lot of resources to offer to the entrepreneur, and we don't even qualify to invest." ”

3. The entrepreneur did not find a quick copy mode, but wait for bat admission.

Unlike last year's group-buying and taxi apps, online education entrepreneurs have not discovered a fast, replicable model in the last year, but are waiting for the internet giant to enter.

At the same time, traditional educational institutions have begun to plough through online education. Last week, the new Oriental Online announced further independence, the future of new Oriental online operations will be more flexible, its CEO Chang also said the company will be capital operation.

According to the public information, the new Oriental online 12-month revenue of 30 million U.S. dollars, annual growth rate of 30%, operating profit of 19%, if the new Oriental online as an entrepreneurial project, is undoubtedly the big guy in the peer.

BAT, YY, the new Oriental, the good future, coupled with the first to stand out of the network, the distance education, and so on, basic from a variety of dimensions to block the most imaginative business model of teaching platform, which makes teaching platform-type entrepreneurial projects become increasingly unreliable.

Online education Observer Huang said, we all already know, simple platform is difficult to take off, the future in the field of subdivision of the platform + Content collation form will be more.

But in the subdivision area, the first batch of successful online education entrepreneurs are becoming the mountain of the successor, such as in oral English one-on-one, has formed a low-end (such as 51Talk), midrange (such as 91 foreign teachers), high-end (such as VIPABC, is Ali investment that do) of the three-tier pattern, It has been difficult to provide any market space for subsequent startups.

And in the founder of the web hosting conference, there are bank class entrepreneurs complained that the monkey bank occupy the market, seek to crack the law. This is actually more interesting, because the ape question bank from the chalk net transformation only more than a year time, but became later entrepreneurs difficult to read the mountain.

This also reflects the current situation of online education entrepreneurship, that is, the project is more reliable, and running faster, and later projects, the success rate is more worrying.