2U, the leading OPM, is paying $750 million to acquire Trilogy Education, a New York City-based boot camp specialized in building programs on coding, data analytics, UX/UI and cybersecurity.
The deal — $400 million in cash and $350 million in 2U stock — will allow 2U to bump up its university portfolio, to 68 institutions from the existing 36, and expand into the continuing education market (around $366 billion).
2U has currently a market cap of $3.85 billion and is publicly traded on Nasdaq.
Trilogy has to date provided courses for 20,000 people and 1,200 instructors across 120 programs.
“We expect the addition of Trilogy to accelerate our path to $1 billion in revenue by one year from 2022 to 2021,” 2U co-founder and CEO Christopher “Chip” Paucek said in a statement.
This transaction fuels the controversy about commercial corporations and nonprofit universities partnering to build educational courses while making money.
