Vietnam English teaching school gets $10 mln from foreign investor

The startup, using a mixture of designed curriculum and an online content platform, has trained more than 50,000 students at its 16 campuses in Ho Chi Minh City and Hanoi.

"By partnering with Kaizen Private Equity, one of Asia’s most active education investors, YOLA gains a partner whose vision of educational and social impact is aligned with ours, and we are excited to work together to continue to deliver on our mission of educating 500,000 students," Pham Anh Khoa, co-founder and CEO of YOLA, said.

YOLA was founded in 2009 by a group of Vietnamese students returning from abroad. In 2016 it received funding of $4.9 million from Vietnamese private equity firm Mekong Capital.

This is Kaizen’s first deal in Vietnam. It has previously invested in major education and tech companies in South Asia and Southeast Asia, including India’s learning app Toppr and education financing firm Varthana.

Vietnamese education firms have received increasing investment in recent years.

In 2017 Swedish fund EQT Partners gave an undisclosed amount to the company that owns English teaching institute ILA Vietnam.

Last year education technology company Topica Edtech received $50 million from Singapore private equity firm Northstar while the sector raised $54 million.