AEON Learning acquires Acadgild for $10 mn

Edu-tech firm AEON Learning today said it has acquired Acadgild -- which offers high-end tech skills to mid-career IT professionals -- for about USD 10 million in an all-stock deal.
"This is an all-stock deal, where the investors of Acadgild will receive shares of AEON Learning. This deal is valued at about USD 10 million," AEON Learning founder and CEO Karthik KS told PTI.
AEON Learning offers technology to universities for their courses through its platform Avagmah. It reaches to 22,000 students across 66 countries, with 20 per cent business originating from the US.
The company aims to tap into the fast growing online higher education market, which is pegged to be a USD 1.96 billion industry by 2021 (as per a latest KPMG-Google report), AEON Learning said in a statement.

"This acquisition offers us a tremendous opportunity to shape the future of the global workforce to produce readily deployable skilled talent," Karthik said.
Vikalp Jain, co-founder of Acadgild, will join as AEON Learning as President.

Till date, both companies have raised a cumulative funding of USD 6.5 million.
Acadgild received initial investment by venture capital firm Jupiter Capital, Enki and K Ganesh of GrowthStory and works with corporates like GE, Capgemini, Cognizant, Oracle and more.
Avagmah is backed by investors like Infosys co-founder S Gopalakrishnan, Sri Hari of Lion Rock Capital, Atul Nissar of Aptech and Meena Ganesh.