Microsoft in January said that its online collaboration platform, Teams are being used by more than 100 million students which increased due to the COVID 19 pandemic and a lot of schools going fully or partly remote. Now, Microsoft has acquired another platform to continue expanding into the education market.
The company acquired TakeLessons, a platform that allows students to connect with individual tutors in aspects like academic subjects, music lessons, hobbies or professional training, and language learning, and allows tutors to organize, and book the lessons they give both in-person and online.
TakeLessons has raised at least $20 million from a range of VCs and individuals which includes Uncork Capital, LightBank, Crosslink Capital, and others. TakeLessons posted a short note in the form of Q & A to confirm the deal on their site. The note said it will not seize operating its business as usual for the time being, with the aim of expanding its platform to a wider audience globally.
During the time of acquisition, the number of active tutors and students of TakeLessons had on its platform is not known, but in another context, GoStudent, another big player in the online one on one tutoring raised $244 million in funding earlier this year which raised its value to $1.7 billion. Brainly and some other online tutoring platforms have seen their valuation increase to hundreds of millions.
With the modest amount TakeLessons was able to raise, it is likely a much lower valuation. Yet the acquisition gives Microsoft the beginnings and infrastructure for establishing a more aggressive play in mass-market online education, possibly to go head to head with these and other big platforms.
Today, TakeLessons provides instruction in a variety of areas which includes languages, music lessons (which was where it started), test prep, and academic subjects, crafts and commuter skills, and more. The platform has been around since 2006 where it started as a platform where people can connect to local tutors for one on one lessons before they ventured into online lessons to complement the business.
The pandemic has influenced a shift to online tutoring which is what TakeLessons offers much today. It continues to offer its lessons on a one-on-one basis, but more students can participate in group lessons online through its startup’s live platform.
