Global EdTech Company Renaissance Announces Significant Growth Investment from Blackstone

Renaissance, a global leader in pre-K–12 educational technology, has recently announced its entry into a definitive agreement for private equity funds managed by Blackstone to make a significant equity investment in the company alongside existing investors including Francisco Partners and TPG’s The Rise Fund.

According to a press statement, Blackstone’s investment will be made through its flagship private equity vehicle, and Francisco Partners will remain a major shareholder in the company.

Founded in 1986, Renaissance combines decades of experience in assessments with personalized instruction and analytics solutions delivering teachers and administrators the tools to plan, lessons to teach, and the resources to motivate students to learn. Renaissance is one of the most recognized and trusted brands in K-12 education serving more than 40% of US schools and more than 16 million students worldwide.

Renaissance’s assessment-driven, integrated instructional ecosystem enables schools and districts to benchmark student progress; teach, plan, and respond to students’ needs in real-time with personalized instruction; and offer supplemental student literacy and math learning software solutions.

Commenting on the new investment, Chris Bauleke, CEO of Renaissance, said,

“As technology continues to change, and as teachers and students connect in new ways, our commitment to empower teachers, students, and administrators is unwavering. Now, together with Blackstone and Francisco Partners we have even more opportunity to further our mission to accelerate learning for all worldwide.”

The new investment from Blackstone will enable Renaissance to further accelerate organic growth initiatives and innovation across its product suite. Building on the platform’s growth under Francisco Partners, the investment will also enable the company to continue executing on its targeted acquisition strategy following its recent acquisitions earlier this year of Lalilo, a research-based foundational literacy program; and Nearpod, a leader in teacher-facilitated instructional delivery.

Eli Nagler, Senior Managing Director at Blackstone, said,

“Chris and the Renaissance team have done an exceptional job building a next-generation technology platform to meet the rapidly evolving needs of today’s classroom and beyond – where digital tools play a critical role. We’re thrilled to join with Francisco Partners to support the continued expansion of the business as educators increasingly leverage technology to provide students with personalized learning solutions.”

Blackstone’s investment is a continuation of the firm’s high-conviction thematic focus on the fast-growing education technology industry. It follows recent investments through its private equity business in Ellucian, a leading software provider to universities, and through its Blackstone Growth (BXG) business in Articulate, a SaaS training and development platform for companies.

Jason Brein, Partner at Francisco Partners, and Alan Ni, Principal at Francisco Partners, also said in a statement,

“As a leading K-12 EdTech software platform, Renaissance is at the forefront of developing innovative solutions that offer new ways to teach and learn across remote, hybrid, and in-person classrooms. It has been our pleasure to partner with Chris and the Renaissance team over the last few years as they have scaled their integrated platform and product suite to best support the needs of students, teachers, administrators, and parents. We are excited to continue our partnership and look forward to working together with Blackstone to further support Renaissance’s mission.”

Goldman Sachs & Co. LLC served as lead financial advisor to Renaissance, Macquarie Capital also served as a financial advisor and Kirkland & Ellis served as legal advisor. SVB Technology Investment Banking served as financial advisor to Blackstone, and Simpson Thacher & Bartlett LLP served as legal advisor.

About the Author

Author: Stephen Soulunii

No more a student, but love to learn. Not a teacher, but care about how students are taught. Not an educator, but want everyone to be educated. Not a social worker, but desire to see change. Not a reformer, but always want to see a better world. The author believes that only sound education can bring a better future, better world and technology can help achieve a lot in this field.

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