This newsletter covers the business side of the education industry - venture funding, M&A, other financial transactions. Whiteboard Advisors also publishes a daily newsletter - What We’re Reading - of curated, industry-focused news clips and a weekly newsletter - Whiteboard Notes - which covers policy, industry trends, and insights from W/A CEO Ben Wallerstein.
Hello!
Two quick announcements:
We published a workforce learning venture capital market overview based on the EdSheet Deals Database. While venture capital is down in the workforce market (and education overall), there continues to be plenty of M&A activity and $1B+ in new philanthropic commitments may provide a new anchor for the workforce corner of the market.
Second, Rayna Glumac and I are back on the SXSW EDU ballot. Our session on trends in the education market was standing-room-only last year, and we’d love to run it back. Community voting contributes substantially to the organizers’ selection decision — we are grateful for your vote!
Now, onto the news. In this week’s EdSheet, we cover:
An all-M&A fortnight: While the venture market has hit a summer lull, acquirers stayed busy, headlined by China's Chunlai Education Group acquiring Dublin Business School from Kaplan for $127.5M.
The campus land rush: Colleges, from the shuttered Cazenovia College to the very-much-alive George Washington University, are selling real estate to data-center developers and housing investors. The education industry continues to feel reverberations from the AI boom.
Virtual tutoring's continued retreat: While not as jarring as the shutdown of FEV Tutor, Nerdy’s decision to shut down its district-facing tutoring business (to refocus on consumer) is another high-profile exit in the post-ESSER era of tutoring.
Funding / M&A
Whiteboard Advisors not only provides policy and market-related diligence and advisory services, we track every financial transaction that happens in education — and keep a record of all deals that are publicly announced. You can check out our Deals Database here:
The following transactions caught our eye over the past few weeks. If you have a deal to announce in this newsletter, please reach out.
M&A
China Chunlai Education Group acquires Dublin Business School from Kaplan for $127.5M / Ireland (China), HED Institution
Dublin Business School (DBS) is Ireland's largest private college, enrolling roughly 9,000 students from 80+ countries. Kaplan had owned it since 2003, and the sale may indicate some desire from Kaplan to divest the last of its degree-granting institutions overseas. Chunlai Education Group, which is publicly traded on Hong Kong’s stock exchange, operates seven colleges serving 116,000+ students in China, and this deal is its first move outside the country.
Imagine Learning acquires Wayside Publishing / US, K12 Content Provider
Wayside is a 35-year-old world language curriculum publisher whose strength is European languages. The deal also includes Nualang, an online conversational practice tool that Wayside acquired in 2024. The acquisition strengthens Imagine Learning’s position in the languages category, providing a wholly owned core curriculum offering in the subject.
engage2learn acquires Instructional Coaching Group / US, K12 Professional Development
Instructional Coaching Group is the professional development provider built around University of Kansas researcher Jim Knight. Leeds Equity-backed engage2learn plans to embed Knight's frameworks into GroweLab, its classroom observation and coaching software. ICG is engage2learn's second PD acquisition this quarter (following their acquisition of Education Elements in April), and the 5th publicly announced K12 PD acquisition this year as the sector continues to look for its footing in the post-ESSER era.
Ascend Learning acquires TAMS / US, Higher Ed Software Infrastructure
TAMS (Teaching Assignment Management System) is a software platform built to streamline the operations of nursing programs that was spun out of Duke University and is now used by 70+ institutions. Blackstone-backed Ascend claims to reach more than 60% of US nursing schools, so the rationale for this deal was likely a hybrid of product functionality and customer acquisition.
Imarticus Learning acquires BELLS Institute of Higher Learning / India (Singapore), Professional Upskilling
Imarticus provides education, finance, and technology-focused career training to 1M+ learners in India while BELLS is a private education institution in Singapore with 150,000+ alumni. Imarticus will now leverage BELLS’ presence in Singapore as a regional hub in Southeast Asia, with an emphasis on government training initiatives - BELLS’ affiliation with Singapore’s SkillsFuture program was called out explicitly as a key part of the deal.
Bright Stars acquires The Learn Well Group / UK, Early Childhood Provider
Oakley Capital-backed Bright Stars acquired the Learn Well Group, which operated 3 nurseries in the UK, bringing Bright Stars’ UK portfolio to 147 sites cobbled together from 20+ acquisitions since Oakley invested in 2021. While Bright Stars does not operate in the US, private equity's consolidation of early childhood providers is a trend we've been tracking for a while, and one that legislators are starting to notice.
Training Industry, Inc. acquires Chief Learning Officer and Chief Talent Officer brands / US, Industry Media
The Chief Learning Officer and Chief Talent Officer brands - including their media publications, events, awards, and research library - will now operate under Training Industry. Corporate L&D media consolidating alongside the market it covers.
Accelerator Programs
Strategic Education (SEI) opened applications for its second Signal Labs cohort, with Rethink Capital Partners and New Markets Venture Partners joining LearnLaunch as the program’s institutional capital partners. Every Signal Labs company will be guaranteed a pilot inside one of SEI's divisions. This cohort will prioritize companies in the areas of experiential learning, skills assessment, AI fluency, allied health, credentialing and outcomes tracking, AR/VR, non-degree and modular learning pathways, and operational efficiency. Applications close September 11.
What’s on your Whiteboard?
A conversation with ClassDojo CEO Sam Chaudhary on his career, the evolution of ClassDojo’s business, and technology’s role in the future of education.
Arman Jaffer and I sit down to discuss his company’s new whitepaper and how technology use in schools may change as a result of advances in AI.
News of Note
Early Childhood
Trump administration plans to upend Head Start by deregulating it.
More early childhood programs are providing free housing to teaching staff, consistent with the trend of educational institutions using affordable housing as a means of attracting and retaining talent.
K12
Education Week previews what's in store for school funding in 2026-27.
Not directly related, but maybe should be: a school system built for a city that no longer exists
Because, enrollment declines are causing revenue problems, leading to heartbreaking cuts, like the end of universal free meals in Miami.
Exacerbated by persistent chronic absenteeism - further confirmation of what we discussed 2 weeks ago, that attendance norms have permanently shifted.
Nerdy shut down its tutoring service for districts to re-focus on its consumer tutoring model, following a number of other departures from the space.
Outcomes-based contracts continue to grow in prominence, profiled this week in the Hechinger Report.
Sad and sobering topics: how to stop school shootings and should letting children play outside alone be a crime?
Michael Bloomberg argues we can't fix America's schools without data.
Questions are rising about the rigor of the Classic Learning Test, which had been winning over states as a graduation test alternative to the SAT and ACT. Yet more fuel on the fire of the shakeup in the assessment space.
Finally, the Pokémon Company is expanding its club program to K12 educators through ISTE. Millennial parents: this is our moment to ensure that Missingno lives on in the hearts and minds of the next generation.
Higher Ed
College closures are not a new trend, but what is happening to all the physical assets a shuttered college leaves behind?
Of note, this trend is not limited to college closures, even some traditionally “elite” schools are selling campus property to data-center developers.
Also courting institutions for on-campus and near-campus real estate? Student housing investors in Europe, India, and Alabama, among other places. Even the students themselves are getting in on the real estate development action.
Only partially education-related, but it does seem like we are at the start of a large-scale land use re-shuffle driven by AI. Even the oil and gas cowboys in the Permian Basin are taking notice.
Related to campus finances, struggling colleges are raiding restricted endowments, offering large-scale buyouts, and letting go of tenured professors to pay their bills.
AI on campus update:
58,000 applicants will have to retake National Autonomous University of Mexico’s entrance exam due to cheating concerns
A problem that Caltech is trying to solve with a (human) “Fraud Squad.”
Many professors are deciding they just can’t with AI, and retiring.
Workforce
Hiring managers say new grads are now competing with AI for entry-level roles. Wage compression may be next.
Related to the related, you will learn to love AI writing.
For those jobs that continue to exist, the best interview isn't an interview - it's a training program: more and more jobs now starting with a live audition.
Data/Whitepapers
From the W/A Research team and the basis for my interview with Arman Jaffer (above): From Efficiency to Efficacy: Measuring AI’s Instructional Impact.
Looking for your next opportunity in education? Check out our W/A Jobs, which features 3,648 career opportunities from 304 organizations across the education industry. A few roles that we’re excited about from the past week:
ACT is hiring a Program Director, State Strategy & Execution in Iowa City to lead state policy and partnership work.
The Carnegie Foundation for the Advancement of Teaching is hiring a Project Manager for its Los Angeles Initiative to drive its work reimagining the high school experience in LA.
Strategic Education is hiring a remote Senior Product Insights Analyst to support the organization’s efforts to continue to evolve their learner experience
Whiteboard Advisors is the leading policy-related diligence partner for education investors, advising on most major private equity transactions in education over the past 15 years. Our specialty is translating complex policy dynamics into insights that inform decision-making. Reply to this email to learn more.
