Image Source: Visual China

BEIJING, February 28 (TMTPOST) — Chinese professional education service provider Fenbi filed its prospectus for listing on the HKEX (Hong Kong Exchanges and Clearing) on Monday.

The IPO’s co-sponsors include China International Capital Corporation, Citibank and BofA Securities.

The company’s prospectus says the funding raised from the IPO will be used for developing course content and enhancing student recruitment, technological capacity and digital infrastructure.

Established in 2015, Fenbi is an educational company specializing in professional and continuing education for adults. The company provides online courses, offline training and learning materials for users, which are also the company’s main sources of income.

Fenbi said that its offline education service now covers over 260 cities across 31 provinces, autonomous regions and municipalities.

The company’s prospectus also shows that Fenbi’s paid users had grown from 6 million in 2019 to 9.6 million in 2020. As of September 30, 2021, the company had 7.3 million paid users. Users that paid full prices for courses rose from 1.4 million in 2019 to 1.8 million in 2019. The company had 2.1 million users that paid full prices for courses on September 30, 2021.

As of December 31, 2021, Fenbi had amassed 45.3 million paid users on its online platform. The monthly active users of Fenbi’s platform were 4.7 million, 6.5 million in 2020 and 2021 respectively, registering year-on-year growth of 62% and 38%.

In 2019, Fenbi’s net profit was 175 million yuan. In 2020, the company saw a net loss of 363 million yuan. During January and September in 2021, the company’s net loss was 782 million yuan.

Fenbi completed its Series A financing at US$390 million in February 2021, which was led by IDG Capital and Trustbridge Partners, and followed by CPE and DCP, etc. Before the IPO, Fenbi’s CEO Zhang Xiaolong and his persons acting in concert held 35.33% of the company’s stake, while Tencent, IDG, Matrix Partners and Hillhouse Capital Group held 14.13%, 11.95%, 7.21% and 6.02%, respecitvely, of the company’s stake.