Apple Acquires Education Startup LearnSprout

Apple has acquired education-technology startup LearnSprout, Bloomberg reported a bit ago and we have just confirmed. Terms of the deal were not disclosed.

LearnSprout is a three-year-old, San Francisco-based software startup whose online data insights help K-12 educators track students’ performances. The company had raised $4.7 million from investors across two rounds, including Andreessen Horowitz, Formation 8, and Samsung Ventures. CrunchBase has the full investor list here.

According to the outlet The Information, the deal closed last summer and returned investors’ money (just).

Apple is working on education tools for the iPad to more aggressively compete with low-cost Chromebook laptops that have been rapidly winning over schools. According to Google, educators were purchasing 1 million Chromebooks a quarter as far back as the summer of 2014.

Apple has similarly touted its strong iPad sales to educators, but a December CNBC report noted that Chromebooks now make up more than half of all devices in U.S. classrooms, while Apple’s share of classroom purchases fell by more than half between 2012 and 2015.