The archive · Education & Work · Product decision · 2015–2026
Mathpresso's photo-a-problem bet: QANDA hits 98M users, then bets education-specific LLMs
Korean edtech Mathpresso bet students would photograph homework and get AI answers; QANDA hit 98M users in 50 countries with ~$130M raised.
Mathpresso (QANDA)
What the business is
Mathpresso operates QANDA, an AI learning app where students photograph a problem and receive step-by-step solutions, plus B2B tutoring (QANDA Tutor) and education-specific LLMs (MathGPT, Poly).
Starting capital：Total funding about $130M as of September 2023, including an $8M (KRW 10B) round from KT; previous backers include Google, GGV Capital, Goodwater Capital, SoftBank Ventures Asia, Legend Capital and Mirae Asset Investment.
How it started
Mathpresso was founded in Seoul in 2015 by Ray Lee and Jake Lee, who originally built QANDA as a 1:1 Q&A service with top university tutors. In 2017 the team added AI-based OCR search, which drove exponential growth among K-12 students.
What happened
QANDA grew to 80M+ registered users by September 2023 (98M+ by March 2025) with about 10M photos uploaded daily and 87% of users outside Korea. Mathpresso raised roughly $130M from Google, GGV, Goodwater, SoftBank Ventures Asia, KT and others, and from 2023 pushed education-specific AI: the Poly chatbot, a MathGPT model that the company said beat Microsoft's model on math benchmarks in January 2024, and the US college-prep tool Cramify.
How it ended up
Still running and expanding: Mathpresso targets the US market, builds QANDA Tutor and education LLMs, and reported revenue split roughly 60% Korea / 40% global; no IPO or exit announced.
Background
Mathpresso was founded in Seoul in 2015 by Ray Lee and Jake Lee, initially as a 1:1 Q&A service matching students with top university tutors. The decisive product bet came in 2017: add AI-based optical character recognition so a student could photograph a math problem and instantly get a step-by-step solution — making the phone itself the tutor.
The wedge worked. QANDA grew to 80M+ registered users across 50+ nations by September 2023 — 87% of them outside Korea, with about 10M photos uploaded daily and a top-1 education app position in 20+ countries — and to 98M+ users by March 2025. Funding reached about $130M, including Google, GGV Capital, Goodwater Capital, SoftBank Ventures Asia and KT, with Google's investment being its only direct stake in a Korean startup.
From 2023 Mathpresso leaned into education-specific AI: the Poly chatbot, a MathGPT model the company said beat Microsoft's model on math benchmarks in January 2024, and Cramify for US college prep. With roughly 60% of revenue from Korea and 40% from global markets, the company continues to target the US while expanding QANDA Tutor.
What has to be true
- Photographing a homework problem was already a student habit (they sent photos to tutors), so OCR-plus-AI mapped the behavior directly onto the phone instead of asking users to change.
- The photo-based flow generated a defensible data moat: 6B+ solution searches by 2023 and 7.1B+ learning data points by 2025, which fed the education-specific LLM.
- A 1:1 tutoring price anchor made the freemium app feel dramatically cheaper, while premium subscriptions (about ¥1,400/month in Japan) monetized the convenience.
- Domain-specialized math models were positioned against general LLMs' hallucination problem — an argument that education-specific training data, not scale alone, wins in classrooms.
What can be applied
Point the existing habit at the new technology: students already photographed problems for tutors, so OCR-plus-AI made the phone the tutor — and the accumulated data justified a domain-specific LLM.
Aftermath
As of September 2026, Mathpresso continues to operate QANDA across more than 50 countries with registered users above 98M per ITmedia's March 2025 report. The company is expanding in the US, investing in education-specific LLMs, and growing QANDA Tutor as its second business model; no exit or IPO has been announced.
Sources
- Google-backed Edtech Company Mathpresso Secures Strategic Investment from Telecom Giant KT
- Googleが“韓国で唯一”投資 学習アプリ「QANDA」運営元Mathpressoの実力
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