Baidu Invests $10.6M in Yet Another Online Education Company Innobuddy, Operator of SmartStudy and SmartPigai

Baidu is taking a further step to expand to online education industry by investing in a third online education company this year. The Chinese search engine has joined Round C in test prep service Wanxue Education in July and acquired Chuanke one month later.

Innobuddy, the operator of online education sites of SmartStudy and SmartPigai, announced that it has secured US$10.6 million of Series A financing from Baidu at a valuation of nearly US$100 million. The company has previously received 10 million yuan (US$1.6 million) of angel investment from undisclosed investors.

Launched in Feb. this year, SmartStudy is an online education platform engaged in offering preparation courses that help students to pass standardized language tests before they get enrolled in foreign universities. The courses are mainly dedicated to exam-oriented testing strategies for popular tests like TOEFL, SAT, GRE, GMAT, IELTS, etc.

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