The East Asia EdTech 150 is HolonIQ's annual list of the most promising EdTech startups from the region.
The East Asia EdTech 150 is focused on identifying young, fast growing and innovative learning, teaching and up-skilling startups from greater China, South Korea and Japan. Powered by data and insights from our Impact Intelligence Platform together with qualitative assessments by HolonIQ’s Intelligence Unit, and local market experts, organizations are evaluated and scored based on our eligibility and assessment criteria, which excludes EdTech's founded over 10 years ago, or those which have exited (listed, acquired or controlled by another organisation).
The East Asia EdTech 150 is aligned to the Global Learning Landscape, an Open-Source Taxonomy that maps the education and talent market
Exhibit 2
The 2023 cohort shows a relatively even distribution across sub-sectors, with a slight increased in EdTech supporting schools, institutions and companies in the management segment, and slight decrease in tutoring solutions compared with last year. East Asia is known for mature tech sector and we see this strength in STEAM & Coding, XR, Robotics and Games/Simulation, which are embedded into learning processes in the region. Language Learning remains a strong category.
Exhibit 3
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China drops below half as South Korea's representation expands, with Taiwan and Japan steady.
The 2021-22 regulatory changes to China's EdTech market all but decimated it's K12 afterschool tutoring segment, which made up the majority of its EdTech growth. Changes in China's EdTech market are evident in the decline in its overall share in this years East Asia list, with very few new EdTech startups from China present in the cohort. South Korea's share has increased to almost one third.
Exhibit 4
Direct-to-Consumer EdTech models dominate the East Asia EdTech landscape with B2B slowly taking share.
Almost three quarters of year’s cohort operate a direct-to-consumer model, with the largest categories being STEAM & Coding and Language Learning, but with representation from all segments including MOOC Platforms such as K-MOOC (Korea) and XuetangX (China) to afterschool providers, particularly in arts and social interest areas such as Micoly (Japan), which offers online hobby lessons and Yixiaoxiang (China) focusing on kids online chess classes. In the workforce segment, D2C EdTech providers such as Hahow (Taiwan) provides a marketplace for online courses, while Hongsong School (China) delivers an online social club and lessons to the elderly.
B2B EdTech represents just over a quarter of this year's list, and is likely to continue increasing over time as technology is integrated into traditional schooling and higher education. B2B Solutions cross learning resources, such as Classcard (Korea) and Wonderfly (Japan) to Learning Environments (Atama+, Japan), Classin (China), Classum (Korea) and systems to support schools and teachers such as behaviour management (Class123, Korea) and broader technology ecosystem solutions for schools (Xueleyun, China).
Exhibit 5
Established EdTech represent over half the list, with the cohort aging compared with previous years. Supporting early stage companies will be critical in the coming years.
EdTech's founded in the last three years Red-Crowned Crane (China) offering study abroad services, Korean startups Letitu and Major Map, offering career and further study guidance, along with Japan-based EdTech Progummy, a provider of next-generation programming education. Growth stage EdTech in this year's list are drawn from a range of segments, with Language Learning, STEAM & Coding and Learning Environments dominating this age group. Examples include Taiwan-based intelligent teacher support, FlyingCrazyer and robotics programming education, Whales Bot (China).
Exhibit 6
Track the 2023 Cohort
HolonIQ customers can track the data for the most promising EdTech startups in the region on the HolonIQ Intelligence Platform. Look for the 2023 East Asia EdTech 150 list and double click into the data behind the charts. Request a Demo if you are not a customer and would like to learn more.
Deep Dive the List
Customers can deep dive the open-source list on the platform. Request a demo to learn more.
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