Lego’s Parent Company Acquires Edtech Firm BrainPOP
The firm that owns Lego is diving headlong into Okay-12 training’s change to digital.
Kirkbi A/S, the personal funding and holding firm that owns a controlling stake in Lego, acquired the video animation firm BrainPOP for $875 million. The deal was introduced Tuesday.
Fueled by the digital transformation of Okay-12 studying, the acquisition is predicted to be solely the primary of many for Kirkbi A/S. The firm has telegraphed its intention to make investments into “digital play and learning,” primarily based on Lego’s need to be a “global force for learning through play,” the announcement of the deal mentioned.
The funding firm has been eyeing edtech for a while: Kirkbi A/S has picked up about 15 minority investments in edtech corporations over the previous half-decade, in response to reporting in The Wall Street Journal. Earlier this yr, it invested about $1 billion into Epic Games, Inc.—the corporate that created the massively standard online game Fortnite—to spur its makes an attempt to construct up the metaverse.
According to the phrases launched in regards to the newest transaction, Kirkbi A/S will assume full management of BrainPOP’s fairness. But BrainPOP will stay “operationally independent.”
Scott Kirkpatrick will proceed as BrainPOP’s CEO, and BrainPOP’s founder, Avraham Kadar, will keep on the board.
Kadar, a pediatric immunologist, based the New York-based BrainPOP in 1999. The firm produces animated academic movies for youngsters about quite a few topics. These days, BrainPOP says it has a presence in two-thirds of U.S. college districts, and a attain of 25 million college students.
BrainPOP’s CEO, Kirkpatrick, says that he hopes that steerage from Kirkbi A/S may help the corporate construct a extra world viewers for its merchandise and promote immediately to folks along with promoting subscriptions to high school districts.
But not everybody thinks the deal is a superb enterprise technique.
Paul Nary, an assistant professor on the Wharton School of the University of Pennsylvania, expressed skepticism in regards to the deal’s enterprise sense.
“I understand what they think they’re trying to do here, but I can’t quite see how this will work for them other than as an iffy investment,” Nary wrote on Twitter.
I perceive what they suppose they’re attempting to do right here, however I am unable to fairly see how it will work for them aside from as an iffy funding.
Lego proprietor Kirkbi is to amass U.S. video-learning agency Brainpop for $875 million https://t.co/qCCUJBaNAj by way of @WSJ
— Paul Nary (@ProfPaulNary) October 11, 2022
The deal doesn’t seem to obviously set up worth for BrainPOP above what may have been accomplished with a partnership that didn’t change possession, Nary defined to EdSurge.
It’s attainable that BrainPOP will probably be allowed to continue to grow worth by itself, Nary admits, however in lots of circumstances like this “the temptation to try and extract value from the acquired company becomes too strong for the owner, especially given its own related business interests in Lego.”
