Education Technology · Profile from Education Technology Research Companion
Zuoyebang (作业帮)
A homework-help app born inside Baidu in 2014 that used photo search to reach a large share of China's school students, turned that traffic into one of the country's largest live online tutoring businesses, raised ~$2.9bn including a $1.6bn round in December 2020, lost its core business to the July 2021 "double reduction" policy, and rebuilt itself as a learning-device and AI-tools company.
At a glance
- Founded
- App launched ~January 2014 inside Baidu (Baidu Zhidao team); independent company from ~2015
- Founders
- Hou Jianbin (侯建彬), former head of Baidu Zhidao, with a Baidu product team; Baidu as incubator
- Headquarters
- Beijing, China
- Ownership / structure
- Private, venture-backed (offshore holding structure typical of Chinese tech, reported). Investors include Tiger Global, SoftBank Vision Fund, Alibaba, Sequoia Capital China, FountainVest, Legend Capital, GGV Capital, Ontario Teachers' Pension Plan; Baidu retained a stake after the spin-out (reported; current size not disclosed)
- Leadership (2026)
- Hou Jianbin, CEO (verify)
- Segment and buyer
- Consumer K-12: parents pay for learning tablets, devices and permitted courses; students use free homework apps; overseas students use freemium AI homework apps
- Scale (learners/customers, latest reported revenue)
- ~170m monthly active users claimed (2020); hundreds of millions of cumulative users claimed; revenue not disclosed. A reported 2025 ranking put AI ARR at ~$33m
- Capital raised / valuation / market cap
- ~$2.93bn raised by end of 2020 (reported). Valuation not officially disclosed; ~$10bn reported (Reuters, 2020) and ~$9.6bn post-money reported (EqualOcean). Marks cut sharply after 2021 (reported). Confidential US IPO filing reported April 2024 (Bloomberg); no listing confirmed (verify)
- Signature moves (including notable failures)
- Photo-search homework app (2014); spin-out from Baidu (2015); live large-class tutoring (~2016); $750m and $1.6bn rounds (2020); RMB 2.5m SAMR fine for misleading pricing (June 2021); forced exit from K-9 subject tutoring (2021); learning-tablet pivot; Galaxy education LLM (2023); overseas AI apps and reported IPO filing (2024)
8 strategic moves analysed
Each one gets a full strategy file in the companion: context, the decision, the financing, what happened, and the lesson.
2014
Launch Inside Baidu
Launch (corporate incubation of a mobile homework Q&A and photo-search app)
2015
Spin Out From Baidu
Divestiture / spin-out with outside venture funding
2016
Live Large Class Tutoring
Launch / pivot (from free homework app to paid live-streamed classes)
2020
Mega Rounds
Funding rounds
2021
Double Reduction Restructuring
Restructuring (forced exit from for-profit K-9 subject tutoring)
2021
Learning Devices Pivot
Pivot / launch (smart learning hardware as the main business)
2023
Galaxy LLM
AI launch (self-developed education LLM)
2024
Overseas AI Apps and IPO Filing
Launch (international expansion) and IPO preparation