Dive Brief:
- Simplilearn, a boot camp and online course platform, announced Monday it has acquired Fullstack Academy, a boot camp provider that has contracts with 20 universities and other organizations.
- A representative for Fullstack did not disclose the purchase price but said it was an all-cash deal. Fullstack’s prior owner, Zovio, estimated in September that it could sell the boot camp provider for as much as $55 million.
- With the sale of Fullstack, Zovio has offloaded its last remaining business. The company’s shareholders approved a plan in October to go out of business after Zovio failed to pivot from a for-profit college operator to an educational technology services provider.
Dive Insight:
The sale of Fullstack is part of Zovio’s plan to liquidate its assets. The company, which once neared $1 billion in revenue as the owner of two for-profit universities, hoped to become an educational services provider but failed to gain traction.
Zovio began offloading its businesses earlier this year. In May, it sold TutorMe, a tutoring services provider, to GoGuardian, a K-12-focused ed tech firm, for $55 million. Months later, it ended a 15-year contract to provide educational services to the University of Arizona Global Campus — its largest business segment.
Under the deal, UAGC paid $1 to Zovio, took over a $20 million lease in Arizona and hired nearly all of the company’s educational services employees, according to filings with the U.S. Securities and Exchange Commission. In exchange, Zovio paid UAGC $10.5 million and handed over the right to a $2.7 million security deposit for taking over the lease.
Under Simplilearn, Fullstack Academy will operate as an independent business unit, keeping its name and boot camp offerings, according to the announcement. Jerrad Tausz, Fullstack’s CEO, will remain in his role, and Simplilearn will bring over the boot camp provider’s staff. Simplilearn’s employee count will now exceed 2,500.
“This acquisition marks an exciting opportunity for our organization,” Tausz said in a statement. “We are very confident in the future success of our organization and excited about what the change of ownership will bring to all staff, students, partners, and alumni.”
The acquisition comes after Simplilearn raised $45 million in a recent funding round. It was led by GSV Ventures, a venture capital firm.
Simplilearn, which is based in San Francisco and India, has about 70,000 active monthly users and more than 500 enterprise clients, according to the sale announcement. With the acquisition, it hopes to bring in $200 million in revenue by fiscal 2024.
“Through Fullstack Academy’s strong footprint in the U.S. with its bootcamps and elite partnerships with top universities, we are confident that this collaboration will enable us to accelerate our global expansion plans,” Krishna Kumar, Simplilearn’s founder and CEO, said in a statement.
