The tech-ed company Simplilearn announced it has acquired the digital marketing training company Market Motive. The deal is worth 10 million dollars and will see the two companies merge into one.
Simplilearn will add Digital Motive’s catalogue to its own. Currently the Indian company has over 250 online courses that focus mainly on training for specific products, industries and functions. Now it will add Digital Motive’s specialized marketing trainings.
The idea of combining digital marketing and IT training is very good. Many startups and companies find that the technology part while challenging is not that difficult to achieve. After all there are lots of people with good technical knowledge. Actually selling the product though, turns out to be the real challenge. Thus digital marketing skills are becoming more sought after.
The global digital advertising spending is expected to reach 278 billion by 2019. Thus Simplilearn will expand its portfolio with Market Motive’s courses in social media marketing, digital advertising web analytics and marketing automation.
Market Motive will continue to operate as an independent arm of Simplilearn. The current executive team will remain including co-founder and CEO Michael Stebbins. He will also join Simplilearn as Chief Innovation Officer.
“Our focus continues to providing a wide range of short term certification-based courses that have a direct impact on the learners’ career. The digital marketing ecosystem is at the tipping point and this is the right time for us to expand our products in this hot segment. We are impressed with Market Motive’s enriched content and domain expertise backed by industry experts apart from their approach towards online training, which fits strongly with our business strategy. We are excited about this opportunity to help and drive profitable growth, thus further enhancing value for Market Motive’s and Simplilearn’s customers,” said Krishna Kumar, founder and CEO of Simplilearn.
Market Motive was co-founded in 2007 by Michael Stebbins, John Marshall and Avinash Kaushik and is based in Silicon Valley. It has delivered web-based certification programs to Fortune 500 companies including Microsoft, Home Depot, Dell, Ogilvy, Federal Express and JP Morgan Chase, and education institutes like Duke University, Benedictine University and Concordia University. The courses and certification provide authoritative cross training in SEO, web analytics, social media marketing, conversion optimization, mobile marketing, PPC advertising, and content marketing.
“Seeing how Simplilearn has scaled in helping 400,000+ people get certified and boost their careers and pay is nothing short of astounding,” said Michael Stebbins. He adds that he sees need for short-term certification to put knowledgeable workers in higher-paying roles. Degree or not, the economic value of these courses is huge and it is rewarding to see lives changed through the training, says Stebbins.
“Digital Marketing is a key growth strategy for most organizations today and is driving the demand for certified professionals across the industry. Short term online courses that position the participant as an expert are the future of professional education,” says Navin Chaddha, managing director of Mayfield which is one of the leading investors in Simplilearn.
The merged company has helped more than 400 000 professionals in over 150 countries hone their skills and see a total of 4 billion dollars worth of pay raises. So you can see that a properly selected training course can be a good investment.