M&As

• IXL Learning acquired Teachers Pay Teachers (TpT), an online marketplace catering to PreK-12 teachers, to broaden the company's capability to provide teachers with appropriate and stimulating learning materials for PreK-12 students. (March 3, 2023; FinSMEs, K-12 Dive)

• Savvas Learning Company acquired Whooo's Reading, an online platform dedicated to promoting critical thinking in students with an emphasis on reading, to assist educators in assessing students' comprehension of the books they’ve read. (March 6, 2023; Company press release)

Partnerships

• Pressto’s integration with generative AI has resulted in a significant increase in its userbase, with 1,300+ teachers and 5,000 students from 700+ schools across the country signing up, representing an 875% overall growth. (March 27, 2023; Company press release)

Management News

• Incident IQ announced that its current CEO, Travis Collins, will retire on March 31. Consequently, the chief operating officer, R.T. Collins, will take over the position of CEO. (March 22, 2023; Company press release)

New Product  

• Moodle launched its Indian subsidiary, “Moodle India,'' following the acquisition of eAbyas, an Indian online education platform provider in December 2022. This move aims to enhance the company's technical capabilities and establish a stronger presence in the Indian EdTech sector. Additionally, the company expects a revenue growth rate of 30%–40% YoY from the division within the next two to three years. (March 6, 2023; BizzBuzz, United News of India)

• Juni Learning launched the Juni Tutor Bot, an AI-powered online tutoring solution accessible on Discord, a communication service platform. The bot is available 24/7 for students to send a text question or a picture of the problem they need help with, and receive an instant response with step-by-step instructions. It covers several subjects, including math, science, biology, chemistry, economics, English, and Spanish. (March 9, 2023; Benzinga)

• Duolingo announced the launch of a new subscription tier called "Max," which includes two novel AI-powered features called "Roleplay" and "Explain My Answer." These features are supported by OpenAI's new GPT-4 technology, which was released the same month. (March 15, 2023; TechCrunch)

• Duolingo announced the development of a music app that aimed to teach basic concepts in music theory through popular songs and instructors to facilitate the learning process. (March 21, 2023; TechCrunch)

• PowerSchool is developing localization features using its international framework for customers to use in their respective regions. The upcoming release will include support for right-to-left languages and Arabic translation capabilities in three of its unified operations solutions, namely Unified Operations PowerSchool SIS, Unified Operations PowerSchool Enrollment Express, and Unified Operations PowerSchool Ecollect Forms. Additionally, these features will also be available in its learning management system, PowerSchool Unified Classroom Schoology Learning. (March 27, 2023; Company press release)

• LINQ has launched a new solution, the K-12 Business Platform, to enable K-12 districts and state agencies to simplify and streamline business and nutritional operations using a unified platform that improves digital integration across various services. (March 28, 2023; Company press release) 

Industry News

• upGrad announced that it laid off ~120 employees, who accounted for 30% of the total workforce of Impartus Innovations, a video-based learning solutions provider that upGrad acquired in 2021. The layoffs were a result of the company's efforts to reduce costs and restructure amid the current funding crisis. (March 6, 2023; Financial Express)