Cambium Learning Group, the digital educator owned by Veritas Capital, is to acquire the listed digital language learning company Rosetta Stone for $792 million in cash. The sale price is an 88% premium to Rosetta’s closing share price on July 16, before the potential deal was reported. Rosetta Stone was founded in 1992 and uses…
Dutch buys German edtech
Netherlands-based education company Squla has acquired Germany’s online schools’ platform Scoyo, which provides cartoon-based content in both English and German across maths, sciences and art. Squla, which has been owned by Levine Leichtman Capital Partners, of California, since 2018, has over 1.4m users across Netherlands, Belgium and Poland. The acquisition adds a further 7 million…
Malaysia online deal
REV Media Group is to acquire iMedia, a fellow Malaysian online company. REV reaches over 15 million users each month and iMedia potentially adds a further 8 million. The deal is believed to be worth $10m (including earnout), paid in equity.
Can The Athletic win?
We know technology can change people’s appetites and habits. But so much ‘new media’ is traditional content fitted into a new digital business model. Look at The Athletic, the San Francisco-based, ads-free, online sports network which has been shaking the foundations of newspapers in North America and the UK. The $40 million-revenue business, which has…
Murdoch TV News launch?
Just a month after News Corp’s The Times of London launched an eponymous radio station in the UK, the company is believed to be planning to launch a TV news channel. It is more than 30 years since Rupert Murdoch launched Sky News, as part of the Sky TV network which was acquired by Comcast…
Reuters buys CaseLines
Thomson Reuters has acquired CaseLines, a UK-based cloud-based legal platform which enables the legal community to manage and share evidence. The business was developed by independent consultant Paul Sachs. Its UK implementation in 2015 was regarded as a rare success in legal IT, not least because his winning startup for the UK courts contract had…
ShareChat buys Circle news
The Indian social network ShareChat has acquired hyperlocal news service Circle Internet, also based in India. Circle, which provides news in appropriate languages across India’s smaller cities, was launched in 2018 and depends for its content on a network of 1,000 volunteers. Terms of the deal were not disclosed. ShareChat has 130m monthly users and…
Melody VR buys Napster
MelodyVR, the London-based music start-up, has bought Rhapsody International, (trading as Napster) from its parent RealNetworks. The $70 million consideration comprises: $15m in cash, $11m in newly-issued MelodyVR equity and $44m in loan notes. Napster was founded in 1999 by Sean Parker and initially involved illegal music sharing. The company was shut down in 2001…
Top Hat buys Bluedoor
Top Hat, the Canadian higher education learning platform, has bought Bluedoor, a science publisher whose books are used at 400 institutions in the United States. The acquisition includes more than 400 labs and course material by 500 authors. The Bluedoor content will be “converted into digital courseware on Top Hat’s platform and infused with interactive…
Relx buys science AI
UK listed company Relx, has acquired literature analysis company SciBite in its eighth acquisition of 2020. The terms have not been disclosed however it is thought that the value of SciBite was some £65m. SciBite was founded in 2011 in Cambridge, England, and uses AI to local scientific publishing sources. Elsevier, Relx’s academic publishing subsidiary,…
