As it seeks to expand in the North American market, the upskilling edtech platform Simplilearn has purchased the US-based Bootcamp education startup Fullstack Academy.
The amount of the acquisition was not made public by the corporation.
Zovio Inc., a publicly traded US edtech firm that has been taking measures to dissolve the business over the past few months, sold Fullstack to Simplilearn. Zovio stated it was attempting to sell Fullstack for $34–$55 million in a filing to the US Securities and Exchange Commission (SEC) in September.
Earlier this month, a group of investors led by GSV Ventures invested $45 million in new capital for Simplilearn, which had purchased the supplier of online marketing courses Market Motive in 2015. Limited Partners (LPs) of it had furthermore taken part in the investment round.
Krishna Kumar, the founder, and CEO of Simplilearn stated that the company will utilise the funding to develop inorganically, add competencies in the field of assessment, as well as look at expanding its footprint in foreign countries like the UK.
Global buyout company Blackstone entered into a binding deal to buy over 60% of Simplilearn for $250 million in July of last year. More than 120,000 paid B2C learners and an additional 100,000 business learners have now joined Simplilearn’s platform, according to the company.
“We are constantly looking for acquisitions and Blackstone being an acquisitive fund is open to inorganic bets,” Kumar told ET. “However, when we look at acquisitions it has to have strong competency and add more value. In Fullstack’s case, we get scale and add competencies through newer university partnerships. The company’s scale, while being profitable, complements our business as well.”
By the end of its fiscal year in December, Fullstack Academy is anticipated to generate $30 million in revenue. According to Kumar, the firm has been bringing in $3.5 million every month.
Simplilearn anticipates using the purchase to introduce fresh courses on its platform in collaboration with US colleges.
Fullstack Academy, established in 2012, provides students in the US with boot camps in web programming, cybersecurity, data analytics, DevOps, and product management. Simplilearn will have access to over 300 employees and 19 additional US colleges thanks to the Fullstack purchase. To date, it has trained just under 7,000 people.
Simplilearn once had a staff of 20 personnel and nine university collaborations in the United States.
The purchase is timed to coincide with Simplilearn’s goal of reaching Rs 1,000 crore in sales and becoming profitable by FY24.
In FY22, its losses increased to Rs 150 crore from Rs 5.6 crore at the same time last year. The total income increased from Rs 340.8 crore in FY21 to Rs 480 crore in FY22.
“Usually, the fourth quarter is the biggest quarter and we are on track to touch our target of Rs 1,000 crore with the Simplilearn business. We are at roughly Rs 800 crore of revenue and with the Fullstack acquisition, our revenues will touch Rs 1100 crore in FY23,” Kumar said.
Simplilearn currently generates a monthly income of Rs 70 crore, according to Kumar.
