Japan's Recruit Holdings acquires UK edutech startup Quipper

According to Techcrunch, Quipper has so far raised over $10 million in VC funding. Its most recent investment was in March last year when it raised $5.8 million in a Series B round led by Japan's Globis Capital Partners. Other investors include 500 Startups, Japanese education and publishing company Benesse, and Atomico, the VC firm led by Skype co-founder Niklas Zennström.

Set up in London in 2008, Quipper is headed by Masa Watanabe, co-founder of Japanese mobile gaming giant DeNA. The company, which also has a headquarters in Tokyo, develops a range of mobile educational software for students and teachers. It also provides a cloud-based platform where users are able to create their own content and assess student performance.

In 2014 the company launched Quipper School, an online learning platform for the K-12 segment. The platform first launched in the Philippines and has since expanded to nine countries including Indonesia, Thailand and Mexico. It now serves over 1.5 million students and 150,000 teachers.

This is Recruit's second UK acquisition this year. In May it acquired Hotspring Ventures, the company behind online hair and beauty marketplace Wahanda, for JPY4.5 billion ($37.6 million), providing an exit for the company's VC backers.

A number of Recruit's recent acquisitions have involved private equity and venture capital-invested companies. In March it acquired German VC-backed restaurant booking site Quandoo for EUR198.6 million ($219 million). Prior to that it bought Australia-based IT and specialist recruiting firm Peoplebank from Navis Capital Partners for A$68.6 million ($56.6 million).

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• Topics
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