The Chinese education company Dr. Panda has amassed over 90 million app installs and 5 million monthly active users for its kids games on iOS and Android. And now fellow Chinese firm TAL (Tomorrow Advancing Life) Education Group is acquiring Dr. Panda.
Over the past six years, Dr. Panda (it’s in Chengdu in China) has become one of the largest developers of paid education apps for children and the creator of the award-winning Dr. Panda series. The parties involved did not disclose the purchase price.
Beijing-based TAL is a provider of K-12 after-school tutoring services in China. Dr. Panda will serve as an independent brand under TAL, with its original management team remaining in place. TAL said it will support Dr. Panda with all its technological, academic, and talent resources in a collaboration to explore new models for future education.
Dr. Panda has 37 children’s games titles including Dr. Panda Town, Dr. Panda Restaurant 2, Dr. Panda Firefighter, and more.The apps have been ranked as the No. 1 kids apps in the App Store in over 50 countries. Dr. Panda launched its first Augmented Reality toy, Dr. Panda Plus: Home Designer, in 2017.
Over the past six years, Thijs Bosma, the founder of Dr. Panda, and Lin Yan, CEO and cofounder, have led a multicultural team from 11 countries in an effort to establish Dr. Panda as an international brand.
“As a part of the TAL family, we wish to make education and kids’ learning more fun, and we can achieve this by utilizing TAL’s many channels and resources, supported by the experience of Dr. Panda’s own achievements to date,” said Thijs Bosma, founder of Dr. Panda, in a statement. “We want education to stimulate creativity, as opposed to traditional methods that ‘spoon-feed’ knowledge. Our shared goal is for kids to have fun when learning through creativity.”
When it comes to kids apps, the top children’s education brands include Disney, Toca Boca, and Nickelodeon.