CodeMao
The business, the turning points, and the decisions behind them.
Some sections are still being researched2 / 4
Sections to complete：02 · 03
01 / WHAT IT BUILT
What the company did
Codemao (编程猫, CODEMAO) is a Shenzhen-based children's programming education company founded in 2015 by Li Tianchi. Rather than relying on MIT's Scratch, it developed its own visual programming language Kitten and the Nemo app for mobile devices, and later rolled out AI-assisted 'double teacher' classrooms to public schools - reaching more than 7,700 public institutions. In 2021 it launched the UNESCO/CODEMAO Africa Asia Youth Coding Initiative, and CEO Tianchi Li was still leading the company in 2024.
02 / FAILURE REASONS
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03 / EVENT HISTORY
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04 / CONTEMPORARY REBUILD ASSESSMENT
Difficulty of rebuilding this project today
Material for this section is being gathered and checked. It will appear here once ready.
Overall assessment: Not completed
05 / CAUSAL CHAIN
How the factors connect
- 01
Raised roughly $360 million in total (reports cite about 10 rounds totaling around ¥1 billion, roughly $145 million).
- 02
In November 2019 it closed a ¥400 million (roughly $58 million) Series C round with participation from Hillhouse, SAIF Partners and China Everbright.
- 03
The 2021 "double reduction" policy upended its consumer business, but the company did not fail: it pivoted to public schools and B2B and remained active, appearing with its CEO at a July 2024 UNESCO youth coding study tour in Africa and Asia.
- 04
No audited loss figure was publicly disclosed.