ONLINE EDUCATION
Nerdy | September 24, 2021
Nerdy, a leading platform for delivering live online learning, today announced that it has completed its business combination with TPG Pace Tech Opportunities a publicly traded special purpose acquisition company. The Business Combination was approved on September 14, 2021 by TPG Pace Tech Opportunities’ stockholders. Beginning September 21, 2021, Nerdy common stock and warrants will trade on the New York Stock Exchange under the ticker symbols “NRDY” and “NRDY WS”, respectively.
Nerdy has an ambitious mission to transform how people learn, and this transaction sets us up to accelerate the growth of live online learning at a pivotal moment when students and schools across the country need immense support. Our entry into the public market represents an important milestone for the Company and provides the resources necessary to go after the massive and growing opportunity in front of us. I want to recognize the dedication of the entire Nerdy team and could not be prouder of what we have achieved thus far. We’re just getting started and have an exceptional team in place to drive the next chapters of growth for our organization
Chuck Cohn, Founder, Chairman and CEO of Nerdy
Greg Mrva, President of TPG Pace Tech Opportunities, said, “We were attracted to Nerdy for its proven business model, strong leadership team, and ability to deliver live personalized learning at scale for learners of all ages and across thousands of subjects. With these attributes in place, Nerdy has delivered on growth in 2021 through core 1:1 and multi-format instruction and has recently added a direct to school initiative which provides a new driver of growth into 2022. We are excited to move forward as one organization and continue to partner with Chuck and the management team, helping Nerdy strengthen and grow its position in the industry.”
Goldman Sachs & Co. LLC acted as exclusive financial advisor to Nerdy. Deutsche Bank Securities Inc. acted as financial advisors, capital markets advisors, FPA and PIPE placement agents to TPG Pace Tech Opportunities. J.P. Morgan Securities LLC and Barclays Capital Inc. acted as capital markets advisors, FPA and PIPE placement agents to TPG Pace Tech Opportunities. Northland Capital Markets and Siebert Williams Shank acted as capital market advisors and FPA Placement Agents to TPG Pace Tech Opportunities. TPG Capital BD, LLC, Canaccord Genuity, JMP Securities LLC, Needham & Company and Raymond James & Associates, Inc., acted as capital market advisors to TPG Pace Tech Opportunities. Goodwin Procter LLP acted as the legal advisor to Nerdy and Vinson & Elkins L.L.P. acted as the legal advisor to TPG Pace Tech Opportunities.
About Nerdy
Nerdy is a leading platform for live online learning, with a mission to transform the way people learn through technology. The Company’s purpose-built proprietary platform leverages technology, including AI, to connect learners of all ages to experts, delivering superior value on both sides of the network. Nerdy’s comprehensive learning destination provides learning experiences across 3,000+ subjects and multiple formats—including one-on-one instruction, small group classes, large format group classes, and adaptive self-study. Nerdy’s flagship business, Varsity Tutors, is one of the nation’s largest platforms for live online tutoring and classes. Its solutions are available directly to students and consumers, as well as through schools and other institutions.
About TPG
TPG is a leading global alternative asset firm founded in 1992 with $108 billion of assets under management and offices in Beijing, Fort Worth, Hong Kong, London, Luxembourg, Melbourne, Mumbai, New York, San Francisco, Seoul, Singapore, and Washington D.C. TPG's investment platforms are across a wide range of asset classes, including private equity, growth equity, impact investing, real estate, secondaries, and public equity. TPG aims to build dynamic products and options for its investors while also instituting discipline and operational excellence across the investment strategy and performance of its portfolio.
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EDUCATION TECHNOLOGY
Amesite | October 25, 2021
Amesite Inc., the leading artificial intelligence software company offering a cloud-based learning platform and content creation services for business, university, non-profit and government agency learning and upskilling, announced today that the latest iteration of its best-in-class A.I.-driven online learning platform, V4, is being delivered SCORM-compliant to customers starting November 1, 2021. SCORM is the most widely used eLearning technical standard available.
"Our Amesite V4 platform now enables our customers to launch their existing SCORM-compliant courses and benefit from our best-in-class A.I. technology and analytics. Our customers told us that they wanted to leverage our superior technology to deliver their existing portfolio courses in addition to new builds – and we listened. Organizations can rapidly deliver their existing courses, courses from our catalog, new courses they create themselves, and custom courses produced by Amesite, all with the user experience that their employees and users love. In just days, whole learning and development programs can be transitioned to Amesite's easy-to-use platform, all with a single purchase order. This development helps our customers – and us – build scale."
Dr. Ann Marie Sastry, founder and CEO of Amesite
Amesite's V4 platform supports migration of SCORM-compliant courses into Amesite Learning Community EnvironmentTM systems, with all the engagement benefits of an Amesite course, including best-in-class user experience, engaging interfaces, interactive lectures, livestreaming, and video conferencing.
Amesite's V4 platform infrastructure enables out-of-the-box scalability and agile improvements that support SCORM integration. Amesite's technology infrastructure focuses on speedy transit network, low latency, quality, and secure communication to provide best-in-class delivery of SCORM-compliant course catalogues.
The software-as-a-service (SaaS) market is expected to reach $171.9 billion in 2022, according to Statista, driven primarily by new innovations and increased customer adoptions. According to Grandview Research, the global A.I. market was valued at $62.4 billion in 2020 and is expected to grow at a compound annual growth rate of 40% through 2028, when it is forecasted to reach nearly $1 trillion.
About Amesite Inc.
Amesite is an ed-tech, SaaS company with the most advanced artificial intelligence driven online learning platform in the industry, providing both content creation and a best-in-class infrastructure for the multi-billion-dollar online learning markets in business and education.
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ONLINE EDUCATION
Teachmint | December 22, 2021
Teachmint, an education infrastructure startup and the creator of India's largest teaching platform, today announced that it has acqui-hired the Indian arm of edtech startup Teachee. Helping educators and creators sell courses online, Teachee was launched in India in October 2020 by Vlight Technology Pte, a Singapore-based company. This comes at the heels of Teachmint's acquisition of Teachmore, a course-selling platform which enables teachers to sell educational products like online courses, live classes, quizzes and more through their own apps and websites.
With this, close to 20 members of Teachee's India team are now a part of Teachmore by Teachmint, strengthening the company's course-selling offering and enabling it's community of millions of teachers to grow their online presence. Teachee's India country manager, Aakash Kasaundhan, has also joined the company as a Senior Director, leading the business growth of Teachmore by Teachmint. This acquisition comes at a time when the Teachee platform is being discontinued globally.
"We are very happy to welcome the Teachee team to the Teachmint family. This acqui-hire will aid the expansion of our course-selling offering and help deliver even more value and innovation to our teachers. With the aim of scaling our user base from 10 million to 100 million and beyond, we are laser focused on increasing our team strength and bringing the best talent onboard. This acqui-hire gives us a great boost and we are well positioned to revolutionize the growth and monetization opportunities for educators and creators."
Mihir Gupta, Co-founder & CEO, Teachmint
Aakash Kasaundhan, Senior Director, Business at Teachmore (former India country manager at Teachee), said, "Teachmint's growth has been phenomenal and it's inspiring to see a company build such state-of-the-art infra solutions for educators across the globe. Our team at Teachee is thrilled to join the Teachmint group and we are definitely stronger together! Despite the discontinuation of Teachee's platform, the teams across the world created truly memorable and outstanding outcomes for thousands of creators and teachers and we are geared up to bring our experience and energy and take Teachmint to new heights."
Teachmint recently marked its first acquisition by acquiring Teachmore in a cash plus stock deal to expand its course-selling offerings. This follow's Teachmint's series B fundraise of $78 million in October 2021. This gets added to the suite of education-infra products that Teachmint has been offering including Teachmint's mobile teaching app, Teachmint for Institute and Teachmint for developers. With adoption from 10+ million users, 4,000+ educational institutes and multiple international edtech partnerships, Teachmint today is the only solution catering to end-to-end infrastructure needs of educators; from K-12 schools to after-school tutoring to universities and even edtechs.
About Teachmint
Teachmint is an education infrastructure provider and India's largest teaching platform. It was founded in May 2020 by Mihir Gupta, Payoj Jain, Divyansh Bordia and Anshuman Kumar - alumni of IIT Bombay and IIT Delhi with executive experience at OYO, McKinsey, Swiggy and Roposo. The company is reimagining the infrastructure for education through their proprietary classroom technology, which is highly optimized for education providers across the world, including individual teachers, schools, universities and edtech organizations.
Through Teachmint's classroom infrastructure, teachers are able to deliver live online classes, ensure continuous student engagement and automate their admin workflows. Today, the platform is available in 15+ Indian and International languages including English, with 10 million+ teachers & students from 25 countries on its platform.
Teachmint is backed by leading investors such as Rocketship.vc, Vulcan Capital, Learn Capital, Goodwater Capital, Epiq Capital, CM Ventures, Lightspeed India, Better Capital and Titan Capital.
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