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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