Edutech Company Hodulabs Spotlighted by Google and Nintendo

Minwoo Kim, CEO of Hodulabs: "We Will Create a Virtual School in the Metaverse"

Handwritten letters from 'Hodu English (Betia English)' users posted on a board inside the Hodoo Labs building.

[Asia Economy Reporter Donghyun Choi] On a board inside the headquarters of the edutech startup Hodoo Labs, located in Junggok-dong, Gwangjin-gu, Seoul, handwritten letters from users of ‘Hodoo English (Betia English)’ sent from all over the country are posted. Children, presumed to be of elementary school age or younger, candidly shared their opinions on the pros and cons of the game. Some parents wrote letters on behalf of their young children. They encouraged the Hodoo Labs staff, saying the game is very fun and greatly helpful for learning English.

Hodoo Labs is a company that has grown a seemingly incompatible combination of ‘studying and gaming’ into a complete business. It provides English speaking content called ‘Hodoo English,’ mainly targeting toddlers and elementary school students. Hodoo English is, for example, a massively multiplayer online role-playing game (MMORPG) format where players earn rewards and proceed to the next mission by correctly pronouncing phrases like ‘How are you’ in given situations. Hodoo Labs was established when CEO Minwoo Kim, who was the Asia representative of Silicon Valley edutech company Kidaptive in 2018, acquired Hodoo English. It is currently the number one in the domestic elementary English conversation sector.

CEO Kim, who majored in business administration at university, has experience as head of integrated marketing at Woongjin ThinkBig, head of overseas business at Mass Cloud, director of strategy at Cheongdam Learning, and Asia representative of Kidaptive. Kim said, "When Hodoo English was put up for sale, many education companies were interested, but the acquisition did not easily materialize due to a lack of IT-related maintenance personnel. After understanding the business potential of Hodoo English, I received a 5 billion KRW seed investment from a junior and fund manager and acquired Hodoo English along with nine Kidaptive employees to start the business."

Kim Min-woo, CEO of Hodoo Labs.

Although Hodoo Labs is an education company, its talent pool is comparable to that of a game company. The company has many employees from well-known game companies such as NCSoft, Devsisters, Netmarble, and Identity Games. Of the approximately 60 employees, about 40 are developers. There are also many personnel who have worked in the education industry, such as at Talking Club by Boyoung Lee and Pagoda. CEO Kim said, "Many executives and employees from the gaming industry have children in elementary school or younger and mostly use Hodoo English. For the sake of their children’s education, they are committed to making it properly."

CEO Kim emphasized that the reason parents themselves support Hodoo English is because it can be proven with data. "The average session time for children using popular educational applications is about 15 minutes. However, Hodoo English is 55 minutes. During this time, children speak about 120 times. We have perfectly implemented rewards, growth, and social features that increase children’s immersion. Children can decorate their own rooms and invite friends. Using the game as an incentive, we make children more engaged in learning."

Hodoo Labs entered the Japanese game market through the famous Japanese game company Nintendo in April. This is the first case in Korea where domestic company content has been distributed and published through Nintendo, not only in the education industry but also in the gaming industry. Since its release, sales have reached 1 billion KRW. CEO Kim explained, "Due to the Tokyo Olympics held last year, Japan adopted English in the elementary school curriculum for the first time this year. Nintendo also seems to have judged that our content has a high chance of success in their country."

Conference hall inside the Hodoo Labs building.

Hodoo Labs is also a company that Google is paying attention to. In May, it was selected as first place in the game category and second overall in the ‘Changgu Program’ jointly hosted by Google and the Korea Institute of Startup & Entrepreneurship Development. CEO Kim said, "It is significant that we won first place in the game category, which was usually dominated by game companies like Cookie Run and Ninja War. Following this, Hodoo English ads were posted on Google Play on the 7th, and they have received great response with over 1.6 million views in just five days."

Hodoo Labs’ revenue was 1.865 billion KRW in 2019 but rapidly grew to 5.121 billion KRW last year. As of last month, the cumulative number of subscribers reached 185,000. Despite adverse conditions in the investment market, the company secured 13 billion KRW in Series B funding on the 3rd. The total accumulated investment amount is 28.3 billion KRW. CEO Kim expects to turn a profit by the first quarter of next year.

CEO Kim’s future goal is to build a metaverse platform called ‘Hodoo Square.’ The plan is to load various educational content, including Hodoo English, onto this platform and interconnect them to ultimately create a massive ‘virtual school.’ Kim said, "We plan to launch Hodoo Square, currently in beta testing, in the first half of next year to provide diverse educational content and diversify revenue models. For overseas markets, we plan to enter Southeast Asia, starting with Japan, Vietnam, and Malaysia."