Microsoft’s Teams supports an excess of 100 million students around the world. Today, we are learning that the software giant has acquired TakeLessons: “We’re so excited to announce that TakeLessons has been acquired by Microsoft. We believe this will further support TakeLessons’ mission: to empower people to learn, connect, grow, and live more meaningful lives through education.”
TakeLessons is an aggregator, orchestrating students and tutors. Indeed, a “platform for students to connect with individual tutors in areas like music lessons, language learning, academic subjects and professional training or hobbies, and for tutors to book and organize the lessons they give, both online and in person.” By this acquisition, Microsoft is connecting atoms with bytes which is what most digital technology firms are doing these days.
Microsoft said in January this year that Teams, its online collaboration platform, was being used by over 100 million students — boosted in no small part by the COVID-19 pandemic and many schools going partly or fully remote. Now, it’s made another acquisition to continue expanding its position in the education market. [..]
Terms of the deal have not been disclosed but we are trying to find out. San Diego-based TakeLessons had raised at least $20 million from a range of VCs and individuals that included LightBank, Uncork Capital, Crosslink Capital and others. TakeLessons posted a short note in the form of a Q&A confirming the deal on its site. The note said that it will continue operating, business as usual, for the time being, with the intention of taking its platform to a wider global audience.
The message from this acquisition for Africa is simple: anything is an opportunity and some of these big technology giants will be looking for platforms and ecosystems with huge numbers as they expand into Africa at lower consumer levels.
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A credible ecosystem that makes it possible for parents to find tutors in Lagos, Kano, Owerri, etc may not be Microsoft’s interest but could be for Flutterwave, Interswitch, etc as they need those pipelines for the future.
Simply, in summary, begin to build.
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