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"Noting that many teachers work late into the evening filling out student records (life diaries) after school hours, we judged that if we provided a solution offering practical help, they would willingly pay for it."
An AI (artificial intelligence) solution is rapidly spreading through word of mouth in the education sector. It is 'Hamaroom', an AI-based student record creation solution launched by edtech startup Teacher LINE last July. Currently, approximately 5,000 teachers are using this service to create student records.
Teacher LINE was founded by Kim Gyeong-ryong (CEO), who graduated from a college of education, worked as a teacher for four years, then transitioned to an IT company where they served as a service planner for 13 years. The goal is to use IT technology to resolve pain points (inconveniences) in the education sector, creating an environment where teachers can focus on teaching and students can concentrate solely on learning.
The first service launched after the company's incorporation in June 2023 was 'Teacher LINE', a matching platform designed to address the shortage of short-term teachers. Currently, over 10,000 contract teachers and part-time instructors are registered on the Teacher LINE solution, which is supplied as a contract teacher matching tool to Seoul Seongbuk-Gangbuk Education Support Office. However, the biggest challenge was that generating revenue in the short term through a simple matching platform alone proved difficult.
Consequently, we conceived 'Hamaroom', focusing on the most significant burden for teachers: creating student records. Hamaroom was developed with a focus on areas that existing generative AI solutions could not address. Based on achievement standards set by the Ministry of Education for each subject, when teachers input activity keywords and episodes about students, it generates customized descriptive sentences.
Kim (CEO) emphasized, "People may think they can write student records by simply throwing text into ChatGPT or Gemini, but in reality, that is difficult to do. We designed the system so that when teachers correctly input customized information about students from a teacher's perspective, proper descriptions are generated."
While the public education market typically relies heavily on school or education office budgets, Hamaroom achieved results where teachers paid out of their own pockets from the day of its launch. As word spread among individual teachers, schools are now proactively contacting us to establish group contracts, and the service is expanding rapidly in this manner.
Having completed seed funding last month, Teacher LINE plans to focus on acquiring users for the Hamaroom service for the foreseeable future. In the medium to long term, it aims to target the global market through subsequent investment rounds. To this end, it is preparing to launch 'Hama O', a next-generation LMS (Learning Management System) targeting 'Google Classroom', which is the most widely used globally.
Kim (CEO) cited insufficient consideration for students as a limitation of Google Classroom. He pointed out, "High school students submit 30 to 40 report assignments per semester, but existing services lack portfolio management functions to systematically categorize these and utilize them for college entrance interviews." Additionally, he views concerns from the field about national education data becoming dependent on foreign platforms as a niche opportunity that Hama O can address.
Teacher LINE plans to launch the Hama O solution within this year and secure demonstration cases in domestic schools to validate the service. Next year, it aims to enter the Japanese market, which has an educational environment most similar to Korea's. Kim (CEO) stated, "We will lead the global edtech market with a service that increases satisfaction for both teachers and students."
[MoneyToday startup media platform Unicorn Factory]
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