Edtech company acquired online coding school this week, its first startup purchase of 2019. The price of the acquisition is $80 million, with potential additional payments of up to $20 million, making it the company鈥檚 largest deal to date, per Chegg.
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The Thinkful deal is intended to augment Chegg鈥檚 Learning Services, a division that offers courses to help students 鈥渁ccelerate their path from learning to earning,鈥 according to , the company鈥檚 CEO.
New York-based Thinkful branded itself as helping the 鈥渨orld鈥檚 next workforce.鈥 It aims to help individuals learn to code online at their own pace, with the help of mentors, career coaches, and peer guides.
The company also has a somewhat quirky method of generating revenue. According to its website, 鈥渋f you don鈥檛 find your new career within six months of graduating, you don鈥檛 pay a cent.鈥 If you do get a job, you owe Thinkful about 15% of your income for 3 years, according to its website. Another option is the offer of a “” at the end of the program for $16,000.
It appears to be a revenue model similar to what is pursuing; The YC-backed company has raised in venture capital funding to date, and it is working to teach non-technical folks how to code. Contrasting slightly from Thinkful, Lambda School requires any coder that gets a job through the program to pay 17% of their income for 2 years, but only if they are making at least $50,000 a year, .
Thinkful was founded in 2012 by and , and secured $16 million in venture-capital funding over its lifetime from investors like , , and . It raised a聽.
Along with this deal, Santa Clara-based Chegg disclosed some growth numbers (which we always love) to give a forecast of what鈥檚 to come.
The Numbers
Chegg expects its calendar 2019 revenue, inclusive of Thinkful, to be around $400 million and $404 million. The edtech company expects its adjusted profit (adjusted EBITDA) to reach $121 million to $124 million over the same timeframe. Following this Thinkful deal, Chegg expects is revenue to rise by $2 million . Profit expectations are static.
One other note: Chegg Services (which encompasses many parts of the business) has 2.2 million subscribers, up 30 percent year-over-year. The unadjusted revenue of Chegg Learning ranges between $332 million to $334 million dollars for 2019.
Here鈥檚 what all these numbers tell us: while Thinkful won鈥檛 dramatically change Chegg鈥檚 revenue right off the bat, it鈥檚 joining a growing part of the company. And one that Chegg is obviously willing to bet at least $80 million on.
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