Exciting news for everyone involved!
Hank.
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Bigfoot Ventures Acquires ChinesePod
Bigfoot Ventures has acquired ChinesePod in order to bring together Chinese-training offerings that blend the best of engaging lesson media production, interactive web technologies and the classroom.
To help adult learners succeed, it is critical to engage them with material that is at once entertaining, enlightening and academically sound. The combination of Bigfoot Ventures’ media production experience, the classroom expertise of New Concept Mandarin (another portfolio company of Bigfoot Ventures) and the new media strengths of ChinesePod offers great promise.
Founded in 2005, ChinesePod pioneered the use of podcasts and web technologies for Chinese-language instruction. Over the past 6 years, ChinesePod has reached hundreds of thousands of students, published over 2,000 lessons and has enjoyed the contributions of each member of its passionate community, helping to create the richest set of Chinese-learning materials available.
Michael Gleissner, chairman of Bigfoot Ventures, commented: “I am extremely excited about adding a market leader of online language training to our existing portfolio of educational investments. With the increasing importance of new media and video-based training, Bigfoot Studios will play a vital role in integrating a compelling language learning experience, especially in the important field of Mandarin Chinese education.”
Fu Xianling, managing director of New Concept Mandarin, remarked: “ChinesePod tools are a perfect fit for our clients, who will experience an integrated experience both online and offline.”
Hank Horkoff, ChinesePod co-founder and CEO, added: “The future of Chinese training is a blended model. Our cooperation with New Concept Mandarin will not only provide more value to students, but hopefully also provide a model for how language instruction should be done in the future.”
The ChinesePod team will remain in Shanghai while working with Bigfoot Ventures and the New Concept Mandarin organizations in Hong Kong and throughout Asia.
About Bigfoot Ventures
Bigfoot Ventures is a wholly-owned international private venture capital subsidiary of the Bigfoot Group of Companies. With operations in Hong Kong, Singapore, Cebu (Philippines), New York, Los Angeles and Antwerpen (Belgium), the company manages and implements the Group’s investment plans and strategies, focusing on sectors operating in communications, technology, education, entertainment, and new media.
http://bigfootventures.com/
About New Concept Mandarin
New Concept Mandarin is the world’s largest Mandarin training institute. Our approach is based on over 20-year experience in applied linguistic research and teaching in Australia, North America, Hong Kong and China. We have empowered over 20,000 people with Mandarin skills, including top management and senior executives of Fortune 500 companies. In addition to our Hong Kong head office, we have 11 centers throughout China and the region, with additional facilities planned for Europe, North America and the Asia Pacific.
http://www.newconceptmandarin.com/













































































