About two months ago, UK-based education technology startup Quipper started its expansion into Thailand, a market it has high hopes for.
Only a month into its launch and according to Takuya Homma, Marketing Director for Quipper, the company has managed to sign up more than 30,000 students and teachers in Thailand to use its services: Quipper School Link and Quipper School Learn.
Quipper School Link lets teachers assign students homework and monitor progress, while Quipper School Learn targets students with the ability to submit homework via the platform.
Currently, Quipper has more than 600,000 students and teachers using its services globally. Its biggest market is the Philippines followed by Indonesia, where it just recently launched launched.
All users can enjoy basic features and content for free, but those who would like extra content or functions can pay to unlock those modules. “… we believe that basic education should be accessible for everyone,” said Homma.
The Thailand strategy
According to Homma, Quipper's strategy into Thailand is all about the ‘bottom up' approach. “Teachers,” he said, “… are the driving force of the ed-tech revolution. There are many cases where principals or school directors implement Quipper School at the school level, and this is already driven by passionate teachers.”
Quipper has also been speaking to Thailand's Department of Education to explore opportunities. It has had success working with such a government department in the Philippines and will like to replicate that level of success in Thailand as well, he said.
Its main challenge for now is to deliver top-notch content completely localised for the appropriate curriculum. “… by working with over 50 teachers and education experts from each country, we now can deliver high quality content,” he told e27.
Money, it seems, won't be a problem for a while. To date, the company has raised a total of US$10 million in funding from Atomico, Globis Capital Partners, and 500 Startups. It employs a total of 100 people across three offices, with more than 10 staffers dedicated to the Thai market.
