2025 Education Industry Financing Trends Report: Where has the money in the venture capital circle gone?
Introduction
In 2025, after undergoing a profound adjustment, the education industry presented a unique situation of "declining quantity but rising price". Although the number of financing events throughout the year slightly decreased, with the release of policy dividends for vocational education and the occurrence of several major mergers and acquisitions, the total financing amount in the industry rebounded from the bottom. The capital market remained cautious, but the investment in high - quality leading assets and those in line with national strategic directions (such as vocational skills training and early quality education) significantly increased. Meanwhile, the enterprise service track, although still popular, became calmer, and K12 subject - based training was further marginalized. We carefully sorted out the disclosed investment and financing data of the education industry throughout 2025 and attempted to analyze the new trends in education industry financing in 2025.
(Note: As per convention, events with undisclosed financing amounts are not included in the amount statistics. For the convenience of statistics, we calculate the amounts according to the rule of taking the middle value - for millions of financing, we take 3 million; for tens of millions of financing, we take 30 million; additionally, for nearly ten million financing, conservatively, we take 6 million, and for nearly ten million US dollars, we take 6 million US dollars, which is 36 million RMB; ten - million - level refers to 10 million; nearly one hundred million refers to 60 million; over one hundred million refers to 100 million. Attachment: The financing time is calculated based on the media disclosure time)
01 Overall Industry Overview
1. Number and Amount of Financing Events in the Education Industry in the Past Five Years
In the past five years (2021 - 2025), the financing data of the education industry showed a typical "L - shaped" trend. 2021 was the last glorious moment for the industry, with as many as 241 financing events and over 20 billion yuan in financing. Subsequently, affected by the "double reduction" policy and the macro - environment, the industry experienced three consecutive years of in - depth adjustment, hitting the bottom in 2024 (49 events, 1.03 billion yuan).
In 2025, although the number of financing events (46) continued to decline slightly, the total financing amount (1.817 billion yuan) rebounded against the trend, increasing by nearly 80% year - on - year. This inflection point indicates that after a long - term de - foaming process, the industry has started to enter a new stage of "improving quality and efficiency". Funds are no longer spread across a wide range of tracks but are highly concentrated on a very small number of high - quality assets (such as the mergers and acquisitions of leading vocational education enterprises).
2. Overview of Monthly Financing in the Education Industry in 2025
On a monthly basis, June became the month with the highest financing amount throughout the year (over 800 million yuan) due to a huge merger and acquisition case of Tianyu Feixun. April was the most active month of the year, with 8 financing events. Overall, financing activities were a bit concentrated in the first half of the year. In the second half of the year, except for slight rebounds in August, October, and December, the overall rhythm remained stable.
3. Distribution and Proportion of Financing Rounds in the Education Industry in 2025
In 2025, the Angel Round (including the Seed Round) accounted for as high as 56.5% (26 events), a significant increase from 34.7% in 2024, indicating that the industry was in a new round of entrepreneurial incubation period, and a large number of start - up projects emerged in niche areas such as AIGC education applications and new vocational skills training. The Series A (including Pre - A) accounted for about 30% and remained stable. In contrast, there were very few projects after the mid - term (Series B), and the proportion of strategic investment and mergers and acquisitions also shrank (less than 10% in total), suggesting that mature enterprises still faced great pressure to exit or transform.
4. Regional Distribution of Education Industry Financing in 2025
In terms of regional distribution, Beijing remained the absolute center of education venture capital, with 9 financing events throughout the year. Shanghai and Guangdong tied for second place (6 events each) and remained active. Zhejiang (5 events) and Jiangsu (4 events) followed closely, demonstrating the educational innovation vitality in the Yangtze River Delta region. Second - tier provinces and cities such as Hubei, Sichuan, and Hunan each had about 2 events. The trend of regional expansion slowed down compared with previous years, and resources were concentrated again in first - tier cities and economically developed regions.
5. Distribution of Financing Sizes in the Education Industry in 2025
In terms of size, ten - million - level financing was the absolute mainstream, with a total of 20 events, accounting for nearly 45%. There were 12 million - level financing events, mainly concentrated in early - stage angel - round projects. Notably, there were 5 hundred - million - level and above large - scale financing events. Although the number was small, they contributed significantly to the total annual amount, indicating the "heavy - bet" strategy of capital on a very small number of leading projects.
6. Top 5 Financing Events in the Education Industry in 2025
The total amount of the top five financing events was about 1.43 billion yuan, accounting for nearly 80% of the total annual amount.
7. Financing Frequency and Amount in Each Niche Area of the Education Industry in 2025
Vocational education was the undisputed "money - magnet" in 2025, with 18 financing events throughout the year and an amount of 949 million yuan, accounting for half of the total both in terms of quantity and amount. This is mainly due to the continuous policy tilt towards the cultivation of vocational skills talents. Enterprise services (including education informatization) ranked second, with 11 financing events, but the amount (277 million yuan) decreased compared with 2024, indicating that the B - end service market has entered a deep - water area. Although there were not many events in quality education (4 events), early childhood education (2 events), and language training (3 events), there was a large - scale single - event financing in the early childhood education field (Haivivi), showing the potential in the direction of AI + children's education. There were only 3 small - scale financing events in K12 education, which was completely marginalized.
Conclusion
The education investment and financing market in 2025 sent a clear signal: "Flood - style investment" era has completely ended, and "precision investment" and "stock integration" have become the new normal.
From the data, although the total number of financing events did not show an obvious increase, the significant rebound in the total amount indicates that the industry value is being re - evaluated. The strong rise of vocational education verifies the importance of "going with the trend", and the high proportion of early - stage angel rounds indicates that a new generation of education entrepreneurs are using new technologies such as AI to reconstruct the learning scenario. For entrepreneurs, the simple story of scale expansion is no longer attractive to capital. Projects with hard - core technical barriers (such as AI applications) and clear business closed - loops (such as direct employment channels in vocational training) will receive more favor. In 2026, with the maturity of these early - stage projects, the industry is expected to achieve a broader recovery.
This article is from the WeChat official account "Blackboard Insight" (ID: heibandongcha), written by Erdong, and is published by 36Kr with authorization.