(Chinese Version)

Although the education and training industry used to be the slowest-changing industry against the wave of internet, it is gradually undergoing major strategic transition at present.

Gaosi Education, a Chinese middle and senior high school extracurricular training organization, is perfect example to demonstrate such change. On September 20th, Gaosi Education announced that it had completed a RMB 550 million ($ 82.6 billion) financing led by CMC Holdings, Alphax Partners, Innovation Works, China International Capital Corporation, Loyal Valley Capital and HINA Group, etc.

At the same time, Gaodu Education announced that it has been transformed from a wholly-offline education & training organization into an internet education enterprise. Next, Gaosi shall continue explore its potential in education-centered big data and AI technology.

“Our strategic positioning is quite clear: implementing CTO strategy in the K-12 industry via internet plus,” Xu Jiecheng, founder and CEO of Gaosi Education, said.

Specifically, the CTO strategy means Content (C), Teaching (T) and Open (O). These three words perfectly explain what Gaosi Education will basically focus on in the future.

According to Xu, the change in the education industry has just started and there’s still a long way ahead. By upholding the “CTO strategy”, Gaosi Education aims to become a major value-creator in the industry. Except for educational contents and modes, Gaosi shall invite its partners to participate in reforming other sectors and develop independent companies or platforms out of them.

Founded in 2009, Gaosi Education used to be an education & training organization dedicated to middle & senior high school education. Its revenue in 2014, 2015 and 2016 reached RMB 184 million, 272 million and 339 million, respectively. On November 30th 2016, Gaosi officially listed on the Three Board.

According to its public offering paper, Gaosi Education’s main business include: small-class extracurricular training (offline), aixuexi.com (O2O education platform), aitifen.com (online educational affairs management platform) and aijianzi.com (online Olympiad training).

Speaking of the CTO strategy, Li Chuan, vice president of Gaosi Education, once told the media that the education quality varied a great deal in the Chinese education industry. Education resources and quality in first-tier cities are a lot better than those in third and fourth-tier cities. Therefore, the entire Chinese education industry is faced with a major challenge: how to improve the education quality of small and mid-sized organizations?

Li Ruigang, CEO and chairman of CMC Holdings (the leading investor in this round), said that application of internet technology had always been a major focus of CMC Holdings. By adopting the internet plus strategy and incorporating leading education concepts in the industry, Gaosi Education attempts to open its high-quality contents, leading technology and education system to K12 education & training organizations across China and generate great value for the entire Chinese education industry.

“The transition of Gaosi Education from C-end to B-end is an attempt to turn information and resources of the traditional education system transparent,”Guang Dong, managing partner of Alphax Partners, explained.

For him, Gaosi Education has laid a solid foundation to rise into an educational giant in terms of teaching research and service system. He predicted that Gaosi might be able to export its education system, product to other organization like google opened Android to other smartphone makers.

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[The article is published and edited with authorization from the author @Li Chengcheng Please note the source and hyperlink when reproduce.]

Translated by Levin Feng (Senior Translator at PAGE TO PAGE), working for TMTpost.