Kaikeba, an online education platform for digital talents in China, announced yesterday that it was officially split from Huike Group and independently received 550 million yuan in its Series A round of financing. This round was co-invested by Gaorong Capital and Hillhouse Capital, and it is also the largest amount for the new vocational education track.

In China, vocational education used to be understood as vocational and technical secondary school or college education. But now, it covers many fields such as on-the-job training and career improvement.

During the past few years, China’s economic transformation positions compound talents as the core competency to generate innovation-driven development and industrial Internet. An increasing number of Chinese people care more about lifelong learning instead of supplementary demand like job-hunting tutoring.

In this context, Kaikeba saw flourishing growth opportunities and the company has adjusted its business for two steps during the past seven years, from knowledge payment business for college students and IT-related practitioners to vocational education with both online and offline services, then to a new online vocational education model for digital talents. Currently, Kaikeba’s monthly revenue is over 100 million.

However, online vocational education for digital talents is different from online IT training. It requires a comprehensive transformation of product form, teacher supply, teaching and research, and organizational structure. Although the business model has been verified, it remains to be seen how the future looks upon this sector.