Benchmark International 
Benchmark International 
Online education platform Udacity has completed its first ever acquisition with its purchase of CloudLab for an undisclosed figure. With its specialism in tech-related nanodegrees – vocational qualifications that can be achieved faster and cost less than traditional degrees – Udacity plans to use CloudLab’s platform to allow users to code interactively and collaboratively from within their browsers.
Udacity also has grand plans to implement CloudLab’s live developer environments into its courses so that instructors can quickly and easily inspect student’s code and highlight specific issues in real time. As part of the deal, Udacity will gain CloudLab’s CEO, Dr. Varun Ganapathi, and his five person team who will go on to play a key role in the company’s machine learning projects.
As well as this, Udacity plans to leverage the experience of the CloudLab team to help automate more of its grading and reporting processes. Speaking on this, CEO of Udacity Vish Makhijani said: “We believe that human feedback is going to be super important, but we can make graders more efficient and drive down the final cost for students.”
Founded in 2011 by Sebastian Thrun, David Stavens and Mike Sokolsky, Udacity has gone on to be one of the largest online education providers with 11,000 students enrolled across the world. A number of its affordable and easy-to-access nanodegrees have been developed in partnership with tech giants including AT&T, Google, Facebook, Amazon, GitHub and MongoDB in order to bridge the current gap between education and jobs.
It is rumoured that Udacity will look to complete further acquisitions in the future as it continues to expand its course offering, particularly in the field of VR development and engineering for self-driving cars.
Stay tuned to our blog for industry M&A analysis and remember to get in touch with our experienced team with any questions you have about the M&A process and how Benchmark International can help you.
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