Simplilearn acquires startup to teach digital marketing to users

India’s Simplilearn, an online education startup for professionals seeking IT certifications, today announced that it acquired Silicon Valley-based digital marketing training company Market Motive. The deal is worth US$10 million.

Simplilearn focuses on providing short term certification-based courses that have a direct impact on the learners’ career. It claims to have 250 online courses on its portal, including topics like advanced cloud computing, six sigma, and big data. With the acquisition, Simplilearn will add digital marketing courses like social media marketing, digital advertising, web analytics, and marketing automation to its arsenal.

“The digital marketing ecosystem is at the tipping point. We are impressed with Market Motive’s content and domain expertise backed by industry experts apart from their approach towards online training, which fits strongly with our business strategy,” Krishna Kumar, founder and CEO of Simplilearn said in a statement.

Market Motive adds a fast-growing online marketing training vertical to Simplilearn as they meet a demand for e-learning expected to exceed $169 billion by 2018. “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, an investor in Simplilearn.

According to Simplilearn, the merged company has already helped more than 400,000 professionals see US$4 billion worth of pay raises. It plans to turn the attention to increase presence in the US where it can offer a turnkey solution to working professionals and college graduates who are trying to advance their careers.

Learning digital

Market Motive builds curriculum that trains professionals on digital marketing, and has delivered web-based certification programs to Fortune 500 companies, including Microsoft, Home Depot, Dell, Ogilvy, Federal Express, and JPMorgan Chase, as well as academic institutes like Duke University, Benedictine University, and Concordia University.

The startup counts Google’s digital marketing evangelist, Avinash Kaushik, as a co-founder. It will continue to operate as an independent arm of Simplilearn with co-founder Michael Stebbins staying on as CEO. Michael will also join Simplilearn as the chief innovation officer and work alongside the company’s director of US operations, Prashant Parmar, in strengthening Simplilearn’s presence further in North America.

Kumar launched Simplilearn as a blog about project management and later went on to provide related courses on the site. In addition to the video lectures, periodic online sessions are also conducted to allow teachers and students to interact with each other in real time. Simplilearn also has several physical classrooms around the world, where students can opt to supplement their online training with in-person classroom sessions.

Earlier this year, Simplilearn bagged US$15 million in Series C funding led by Mayfield to expand rapidly in the US. Though Simplilearn’s roots are in Bangalore, about half of the site’s users are from the US, and less than one quarter are from India. The rest hail from 150 other countries around the globe.