Mergers and Acquisitions in the Education Industry in 2022

This post provides an overview of mergers and acquisitions activity in the education and edtech sectors in 2022

The education sector took some significant twists and turns when the COVID-19 pandemic changed the world. We saw a surge of new users, and new tools, around online learning; but we also saw people and organizations in 2020 and 2021 rethinking how to get the best out of learning environments overall. Now that COVID is largely behind us, 2022 is a year to take stock of how different education related companies evolved and grown.

McGraw Hill acquired Boards & Beyond, a provider of on-demand video libraries and comprehensive online resources for medical students, for an undisclosed amount.

Global University Systems acquired FutureLearn for an undisclosed amount.

GoStudent acquired Studienkreis for an undisclosed amount. This is GoStudent’s 4th acquisition.

The Riverside Company, a private equity group, acquired Applied Educational Systems (AES), a provider of digital career and technical education content for K-12 schools and career centers. AES is an add-on to Riverside’s iCEV platform, a leading developer of SaaS-based digital curriculum, instructional materials and industry certifications.

Universal Technical Institute, a provider of vocational education and  skilled trades programs, acquired healthcare-related higher ed provider, Concorde Career Colleges, Inc., for $50 million.  Concorde Career Colleges has 16 brick and mortar campuses and roughly 11,200 enrolled students in its allied-healthcare programs.

Solutions provider Follett School Solutions acquired the library management system Access-It Software Ltd.

Apogee, a company that offers technology services for higher ed, acquired Cumulus Technology Services, a cloud services consultancy.

The education communications and analytics provider SchoolStatus acquired Smore, a Tel Aviv-based K-12 email newsletter provider that’s widely used in the U.S.

Publisher McGraw Hill acquired the on-demand video library for medical students, Ryan Medical Education, LLC d/b/a Boards and Beyond. The amount was not disclosed.

As mentioned above, London-based FutureLearn was acquired by Global University Systems, a global for-profit higher ed provider based in the Netherlands.

California-based Mattel, one of the biggest toy sellers in the world, acquired Caribu, a digital reading app for families, for an undisclosed amount.

Higher education solutions provider Top Hat acquired STEM learning platform Aktiv Learning.

University Headquarters acquired Discover Early Childhood EDU, an informational guide about degree offerings.

BiC, one of the world’s biggest pen sellers, acquired Advanced Magnetic Interaction, a company that’s focused on “augmented” human-computer interaction.

Learnsoft, a learning management system provider, raised $16.7 million in Series A funding led by Elsewhere Partners.

Discovery Education, a digital edtech platform provider, acquired Pivot Interactive, which has a library of interactive educational science videos. Discovery has private equity backing from Clearlake Capital, and it also acquired DoodleLearning earlier in the month.

EarlyDay, an early childcare education career marketplace, raised $3.25 million.

The children’s publisher Scholastic acquired Learning Ovations, which runs a literary assessment and instructional system.

Edlio, a K-12 communications technology company, acquired SchoolInfo, a mobile app creator for schools.

LumiQ, a Canada-based company that runs a podcast for training chartered professional accountants, raised $5 million for expansion in the U.S.

Roper Technologies, Inc., announced it has reached an agreement to acquire the school administration software provider Frontline Education in a transaction valued at $3.725 billion.

Akili Interactive, which is developing a video game treatment for pediatric ADHD, raised $163 million in a merger with the special purpose acquisition company (SPAC) Social Capital Suvretta Holdings Corp.

Upkid, an on-demand marketplace for childcare centers and teachers, raised $1.7 million in a pre-seed round.

Outcome Group, Inc., an education financing company, announced it has received new debt facility from Variant Investments, LLC, to expand its education portfolio.

Alchemy, a Web3 developer, acquired ChainShot, a coding bootcamp company, for an undisclosed amount.

Renaissance Learning, an educational software services company, acquired Illuminate Education for an undisclosed amount, according to an email sent to Illuminate customers.

Discovery Education, a digital learning platform, acquired the UK-based math and language arts product provider DoodleLearning for an undisclosed amount.

Vsauce’s Curiosity Box subscription service was acquired by science subscription provider MEL Science. It reportedly closed for $12 million.

The future-of-learning private equity firm Achieve Partners acquired Helios Consulting, a certified Workday advisory partner, to build out its apprenticeship programs.

Cybrary, a cybersecurity and IT career development company, raised $25 million in Series B funding.

Territorium, a skill acquisition edtech company, closed $4.4 million in seed funding.

Creative Galileo, an early learning platform, raised $7.5 million in Series A funding.

Pearl, leading research backed, all-in-one tutor management platform, announced its seed fundraising has passed $4 million.

Arist, a microlearning platform, raised $12 million in Series A funding.

APDS, a public-benefit corporation whose advanced career readiness platform offers career training to incarcerated people, raised $7 million in Series C funding.

Class Technologies announced it has closed its acquisition of Blackboard Collaborate.

Kangarootime, an early childhood education software management company based in Buffalo, NY, closed $26 million in Series B funding.

Coding Dojo, a coding boot camp company, raised $10 million. The Bellevue, Washington-based organization trains software engineers both in-person and online and has experienced more than 100% year-over-year growth over the last two years.

upGrad, a Mumbai-based “unicorn” and test-prep company, doubled its valuation after a $225 million funding round. It’s now valued around $2.25 billion. The nonprofit Educational Testing Service was involved in the funding round.

Elevate K-12, the leading provider of high-quality live-streaming instruction for US K-12 classrooms, raised a Series C $40M round of funding led by venture capital firm General Catalyst.

Velocity Career Labs, a startup that wants to create a blockchain-based platform to manage employee’s credentials, raised $6.5 million in funding.

Multiverse, an apprenticeship facilitator, founded in London and now co-headquartered also in New York — has closed a Series D of $220 million, with its post-money valuation coming in at $1.7 billion. StepStone Group (not to be confused with recruiting platform StepStone) and previous backers Lightspeed Venture Partners and General Catalyst all co-led this round, with Founders Circle Capital and past backers Audacious Ventures, BOND, D1 Capital Partners, GV and Index Ventures also participating.

Cambly, a language learning app, raised $60 million in Series B funding, which is encouraging because language learning apps are a rarity in the VC-backed consumer tech space because they have struggled to make money.

Prenda, a K-8 micro-school company, announced a $20 million Series B funding round. The Series B is being led by Seven Seven Six (776), Alexis Ohanian’s firm, with strong participation from edtech-focused VC Learn Capital, Modern Venture Partners, Peak State Ventures, and the companies original angel investors also participating.

Achieve Partners acquired a majority stake in Boclips, a company that curates educational videos.  Boclips works with publishers and education providers worldwide to enrich learning with the world’s best educational videos and podcasts. Boclips is the trusted destination for rich media that are vetted for quality, sourced from leading creators, and curated specifically for education.  Achieve Partners is engineering the future of learning and earning by investing in cutting edge technologies and novel business models to bolster skill development and secure the future of work for millions of Americans.

IXL Learning, a learning platform company, acquired Curiosity Media, which develops language learning services.

BibliU, a learning platform, announced it has raised $15 million in funding. All existing institutional Series A investors – Stonehage Fleming, Oxford Science Enterprises, Guinness Ventures, and Nesta Impact Investments – participated in the round.

Beable Education, an online literacy recovery platform, acquired Readorium, a leading provider of educational software that teaches reading comprehension skills through science text differentiated to students’ reading levels.

Go1, a hub of on-demand corporate training resources, announced that it raised more than $100 million in a new round of funding, bringing its total market valuation to over $2 billion.  The funding was co-led by AirTree Ventures and Five Sigma, with SoftBank Vision Fund 2, Salesforce Ventures, Blue Cloud Ventures, Larsen Ventures, Scott Shleifer and John Curtius from Tiger Global, TEN13, M12 (Microsoft’s venture fund), Madrona Venture Group, SEEK and Y Combinator also participating.

Riverside Insights, a leading developer of research-based assessments and analytics, today announced its acquisition of Aperture Education, the leading provider of research-based social and emotional learning (SEL) assessments for K-12 schools. With more than 65 years of combined research and SEL experience, Aperture sets the standard for research-based SEL assessment solutions.

Elsevier, a global leader in research publishing and information analytics and part of RELX, has closed the acquisition of Interfolio, a provider of advanced faculty information solutions for higher education, headquartered in Washington DC, US. For over 20 years, Interfolio has supported academics, researchers, higher education institutions and funders. Interfolio’s portfolio includes Faculty Information System (FIS), Dossier, and Researchfish.

India-based startup PW, or PhysicsWallah, has raised $100 million in its Series A funding, the profitable startup said Tuesday. Westbridge and GSV Ventures financed the startup’s first institutional round, which values the two-year-old firm at $1.1 billion (post-money). The company offers low-cost education classes. According to the company’s CEO, “The firm has been profitable since inception with positive cash flow and reserves.”

Guild Education, which provides and manages education-as-a-benefit programs for employers, raised $175 million in a Series F funding round. The round was led by Wellington Management, with participation from Oprah Winfrey, Bon Secours Mercy Health, Citi Impact Fund, and existing investors. The latest funding brings the Denver-based company’s total valuation to $4.4 billion.

About the Author and Jackim Woods & Co.

Rich Jackim is an education industry investment banker, educational industry entrepreneur, and former mergers and acquisitions attorney.

For the last 25 years, Rich has been providing boutique investment banking services to middle-market companies in the education sector.

Rich also founded a successful training and certification company called the Exit Planning Institute which he sold to a private equity group in 2012.

Rich is also the author of the critically acclaimed book, The $10 Trillion Dollar Opportunity: Designing Successful Exit Strategies for Middle Market Businesses.

Jackim Woods & Co offers skilled mergers and acquisitions advisory services to privately owned schools, colleges, and EdTech companies in both sell-side and buy-side transactions. Jackim Woods & Co has arranged over 100 successful transactions, ranging from less than one million to more than eighty million dollars in value.

If you own an education-related business and are interested in exploring your options, I would welcome an opportunity to speak with you. Feel free to contact me at 224-513-5142 or rjackim@jackimwoods.com.

How to Value an EdTech Company: Multiples & Example

One of the hardest things to do when building an EdTech business is determining its value. Whether you are seeking growth capital or looking to exit, you need to have a basic idea of what your business is worth.  If you value your business too high, investors won’t be willing to speak with you.  If you value it too low, you leave money on the table or end up giving away too much equity to raise the growth capital you need. So, how do you calculate a reasonable value for your EdTech company?

Well, the valuation methodology outlined below applies to all EdTech companies, regardless of when you are pre-revenue, established, or looking to exit.

How to Value an Edtech Company: Multiples & Example

The global Edtech industry is expected to reach a market value of over $340 billion by 2025. Because of strong underlying market trends, the Edtech sector has received some of the highest tech valuations, with publicly traded EdTech companies trading at 5.0x to 18x  next twelve months’ revenue (NTM)!  These valuations dropped significantly in late 2021 and early 2022, but are expected to rebound.  See our article on EdTech multiples.

If you are the founder of an EdTech company and are thinking of raising a round of growth capital, you’re at the right place. In this article, I’ll provide a step-by-step guide on valuing any Edtech company.

First and foremost, it’s important to understand that EdTech companies are not valued like traditional businesses. Valuations of conventional businesses are based on the company’s free cash flow. With EdTech companies, the most common valuation method is what’s referred to as the Venture Capital approach, which values companies based on a multiple of revenues.

In this article, we’ll use publicly-traded companies in the Edtech industry for comps so you can follow along and use them to value your EdTech business.

Note: If you need help preparing a pitch book for investors, contact us to learn how we can help you prepare a solid Edtech pitch book that will significantly increase the odds of a successful capital raise.

Venture Capital Edtech Valuation Method

There are several startup and early-stage valuation methodologies. While none of them is perfect, they all try to estimate a valuation for a business based on several qualitative and quantitative factors. The Venture Capital Valuation Method is the most common method investors use to value Edtech companies.

The VC method considers business fundaments, market demand, and investor return on investment factors.

Why Do Investors Use the Venture Capital Method to Value an EdTech Company?

The VC method is a relatively simple and straightforward way to value an early-stage EdTech company because it is driven by several factors that can be grouped into 4 categories.

1. Market Demand

Your EdTech company will be more valuable if you demonstrate that it is part of a large, highly fragmented market that is growing at double or triple digits.

2. Market Fit & Adoption

Your EdTech company will be more valuable to investors if you prove that the business has early adopters or users (market-fit) and that people are willing to pay for your service (adoption.)

3. Management Team & Track Record

Your Edtech company will be more valuable to investors if you demonstrate that your management team has relevant sector experience and a successful track record of growing similar businesses.

4. Investor’s Expectations & Founder’s Negotiating Power

Last but not least, keep in mind that investors are willing to back EdTech startups and early-stage companies because they can earn a substantial return on their investment. If a startup is deemed too expensive, it reduces an investor’s return on investment, and they won’t invest.

At the same time, the more investors you can pitch to and the more term sheets you receive, the better your negotiating position and the higher the valuation.

The Three Value Drivers When Valuing an EdTech Company

The VC method allows founders and investors to estimate an EdTech company’s value by inputting three main variables:

1. Projected Revenues

Projected revenues are usually based on an integrated financial model that includes projected revenue for the next five years. Keep in mind that unless your financial model, and the assumptions that drive it, are supported by facts and hard data, investors will take them with a grain of salt. So it’s important to work with an independent, objective financial advisor who can help you develop a rock-solid set of projections.

2. Comparable Industry Valuation Multiples

Investors rely heavily on valuation multiples from comparable companies within the same industry and sector. The most common multiple used is EV/Revenue, which stands for Enterprise Value as a multiple of Revenue. See below for 2022 public Edtech company valuation multiples.

These multiples change daily and are sensitive to many variables, including interest rates, stock market performance, IPO results, M&A activity, market demand, etc.

3. Investors’ Required IRR

The other important variable is the rate of return investors are looking for. An investor’s required IRR (“Internal Rate of Return”) depends on the type of investor, the EdTech company’s stage, and the investment’s perceived risk. The higher the perceived risk, the higher the required IRR. For example, an investor would need a higher IRR for a seed money investment in an EdTech startup than for an investment in an early-stage EdTech company looking for a Series A or Series B round of financing.

Edtech Valuation Example

Now that we’ve covered how the Venture Capital valuation method works let’s see how to use it to value an early-stage Edtech company looking to do a Series A capital raise.

Prove Market Fit & Adoption

The first thing to do is create a detailed, integrated financial model that includes historical financial data and operating metrics. This is important because your historical performance will prove market fit & adoption and support the assumptions you use to create your projections.

Expected Revenues

The next step is to create detailed revenue and expense projections for five years. While the valuation is based on a multiple of revenues, it’s also important to know your operating and growth assumptions to determine how much capital you need to raise to hit your revenue targets.

Need help building an integrated financial model and projections? Contact us for a free, no-obligation consultation.

So, for this example, let’s assume your EdTech company is in the K12 reading sector. You’ve been in business for three years and have been funded by personal funds and friends and family investors. Your business now has 450 subscribers and is generating $250,000 in revenue, and your subscriber base grew by 100% last year. You built an integrated financial model with historical results and projected revenue for the next 5 years. The projections show that next year you expect revenues to be $625K and grow to $4.1 million in Year 5.

Below is a very basic example of projected revenues for the next five years.

Public EdTech Valuation Multiples

The next step is determining the right multiple to use to value your business.

Investors track over a dozen publicly traded Edtech companies to gauge the market’s appetite for EdTech investments.

While the multiples vary a lot from company to company, each is based on investors’ assessments of the company’s market demand, business model, management team, growth rate, and profitability.

Below is a sample of some of the public EdTech companies we track.  Be sure to read this excellent article from the venture capital group, GSV Ventures regarding the valuation of publicly traded EdTech companies.

In our example of the VC valuation method, we will use the Sector Average EV/Revenue multiple of 4.0.

Keep in mind that when preparing a valuation of your EdTech company, it’s important to select the comparable companies that are the most like the company you are trying to value. That won’t always be possible, but to support your valuation, you’ll need to explain to investors why you selected the comparable companies you picked rather than others.

Adjusting the Multiple for a Private EdTech Company

Because we started with valuation multiples from public companies, we need to adjust that multiple to reflect that your EdTech company is privately owned. Privately owned companies are less valuable than publicly traded companies because they are much more difficult, time-consuming, and expensive to sell. As a result, investors apply an Illiquidity Discount, also referred to as a Discount for Lack of Marketability, of between 20% and 30%.

Let’s use a 25% discount, which results in an adjusted EV/Revenue multiple of 3.0x.

Determining Your Exit Value

The next step in the VC Method is to calculate your EdTech company’s value when your investors exit. In this example, we assumed the exit would be after five years. This is called the Exit Value.

Exit Value = EV/Revenue x Revenue at exit (Year 5)

Year 5 Revenue = $4.1 million

EV/Revenue Multiple = 3.0x

Exit Value = 3.0x x $4.1 million

Exit Value = $12.3 million

Investors’ Required Rate of Return (IRR)

The next step is determining the return on investment your investors will seek. The internal rate of return (IRR) required by investors will vary depending on the investor, the stage of the EdTech company they’re investing in (early-stage deals require higher returns than later-stage deals), and the industry trends.

Based on our experience, VCs typically look for a 40-60% IRR on the companies they invest in. Over the last few years, venture capital firms, on average, have generated a 19.8% IRR. Keep in mind that this is an average, so it includes their failed deals (the ones that went wrong) as well as their success stories. They look for a 40%-60% IRR because providing venture capital is a high-risk business, and an estimated 80% of the deals they invest in are unsuccessful or don’t live up to expectations.

In this example, I’ll use 40%IRR as a low-end and 60% IRR at the high-end expected rate of return.

Keep in mind that as your EdTech venture becomes more proven and successful, the perceived risk of the investment goes down, so investors will be willing to accept a lower IRR.

Calculating Your Post-Money Valuation

The next step is to calculate your Post-Money value. Let’s assume you are looking to do a Series A capital raise, so we will also assume investors will require a 40-60% IRR over the next five years.

Using these IRR assumptions, we discount the Exit Value back to its present-day value to estimate the post-money valuation of your business. The post-money valuation is your EdTech company’s value after receiving the infusion of capital. In contrast, a pre-money valuation is the value of your EdTech company as it is today, without the injection of capital.

Post-money valuation = Exit Value / (1 + IRR)^5

Post-Money Value = $12.3 million/(1 + 40%)^5 = $2,287,865

This is the high end of the post-money valuation range, based on the lowest expected rate of return.

To calculate the low end of the post-money valuation range, use the highest expected rate of return.

Post-Money Value = $12.3 million/(1 + 60%)^5 = $1,173,466

This means the post money value of your early-stage EdTech company is between $2.3 million to $1.2 million.

It’s interesting to note that while we calculated the Exit Value using a 4.6x multiple (from the publicly traded EdTech companies), the EV/Revenue multiple for your early-stage EdTech company is much higher and between 4.7 and 9.2 times your current revenues of $250,000.

Getting the Best Terms

Finally, remember that the post-money valuation arrived at above is for 100% of your business. When doing a capital raise, it’s important to raise as much capital as possible while giving up as little equity as possible in exchange.

To get the best terms from potential investors without giving up all your equity, your integrated financial model must include an accurate estimate of your operating expenses so you can figure out exactly how much capital you need.

If your projections show that you need $1 million in growth capital, you may be able to raise the capital you need and only give up 44% of the equity in your company ($1M/$2.3M=44%) in exchange.

The other important this you can do to limit the amount of equity you give to investors is to work with an experienced investment banker. An investment banker who knows the education space can help you build a compelling investment deck, create an integrated financial model backed by solid assumptions, and introduce you to more investors. The more investors you speak with and the more term sheets you receive, the better terms you’ll get.

 About the Author and Jackim Woods & Co.

Rich Jackim is an education industry investment banker and educational industry entrepreneur, and former mergers and acquisitions attorney.

For the last 25 years, Rich has been providing boutique investment banking services to middle-market companies in the education sector.

Rich also founded a successful training and certification company called the Exit Planning Institute which he sold to a private equity group in 2012.

Rich is also the author of the critically acclaimed book, The $10 Trillion Dollar Opportunity: Designing Successful Exit Strategies for Middle Market Businesses.

Jackim Woods & Co offers skilled mergers and acquisitions advisory services to privately owned schools, colleges, and EdTech companies in both sell-side and buy-side transactions. Jackim Woods & Co has arranged over 100 successful transactions, ranging from less than one million to more than eighty million dollars in value.

If you own an education-related business and are interested in exploring your options, I would welcome an opportunity to speak with you. Feel free to contact me at 224-513-5142 or rjackim@jackimwoods.com.