Cherry Tree & Associates | September 2025 | Volume XIX, Issue 3

SELECTED NEWS

95 Percent Group Acquires All About Learning Press

95 Percent Group, a provider of evidence-based literacy programs for schools, has acquired All About Learning Press (AALP), a publisher of structured, multisensory literacy products used by homeschool families and educators. AALP’s portfolio includes the All About Reading and All About Spelling programs, as well as the recently launched All About Math. 95 Percent Group intends to expand its reach beyond school-based instruction into the growing homeschool market, allowing it to deliver literacy and learning solutions across both traditional and home education settings.

prnewswire.com

Medical Billing Technologies Acquires SIRAS Systems

Medical Billing Technologies (MBT), a California provider of education funding and reimbursement solutions, has acquired SIRAS, the state’s second-largest web-based special education software provider. With the acquisition, the combined system delivers IEP management, CALPADS reporting, and Medi-Cal reimbursement, serving more than 190 districts and 16 SELPAs to streamline funding, compliance, and support for growing special education needs.

gvwire.com

RangeForce Acquired by Cyberbit

RangeForce, a provider of cloud cyber ranges and team training exercises, was acquired by Cyberbit, a company specializing in hyper-realistic attack simulations. The combined platform will use AI-driven scenarios and adaptive upskilling to strengthen SOC and incident response teams across commercial, government, and enterprise sectors.

businesswire.com

Ascend Learning Acquires Laudio

Ascend Learning, a healthcare and learning technology company, acquired Laudio, a provider of AI-enhanced workforce management tools for frontline health system leaders. With the acquisition, Ascend expands its offerings beyond education into leader operations, combining Laudio’s platform with Ascend’s broader healthcare training and workforce solutions.

globenewswire.com

Peterson’s Acquires Animal Behavior College

Peterson’s, a portfolio company of Ethos Software, has acquired Animal Behavior College (ABC), a Southern California-based vocational school specializing in training pet care professionals. ABC has graduated more than 32,000 students across the U.S. and Canada through certification programs for dog obedience instructors, groomers, and veterinary assistants. Following the deal, ABC will operate as a division of Peterson’s, expanding its platform of career training and certification programs.

animalbehaviorcollege.com

Ignite Reading Acquires Esteam

Ignite Reading, a virtual tutoring program based on the Science of Reading, acquired Esteam, an AI-driven education startup specializing in assessment and speech recognition. The deal is intended to accelerate Ignite Reading’s efforts to combine one-on-one tutoring with AI-powered skill mapping and personalized practice to address literacy gaps at scale.

prnewswire.com

Banyan Software Acquired Zap Solutions

Banyan Software, a permanent acquirer of software businesses, has acquired Zap Solutions, a provider of admissions management software for medical and graduate schools. Founded in 1997, Zap’s AMP platform is designed to streamline admissions, improve candidate evaluation, and support schools and hospital systems in the U.S., Canada, and Australia.

banyansoftware.com

Chroma Early Learning Academy Acquires Three Childcare Centers

Chroma Early Learning Academy, a family-owned early childhood education provider, has expanded its Metro Atlanta, Georgia network to 16 campuses through the acquisitions of Premier Learning Academy, Kids Tech Academy, and Discovery Point Midway. The acquisitions bring Chroma’s total reach to over 2,400 families.

prnewswire.com

Lingokids Raises $120M

Lingokids, an interactive learning app for children ages 2-8, has raised $120 million in equity and go-to-market financing led by Bullhound Capital and General Catalyst’s Customer Value Fund, with participation from Nextalia Ventures and existing investors. Lingokids plans to use the new funding to expand its catalog of educational and entertainment content, integrate additional third-party brands, and apply AI to accelerate content creation and personalization.

globenewswire.com

Outsmart Education Raises $23.4 Million

Outsmart Education, an online learning platform offering customizable course creation, real-time engagement tracking, integrated assessments, and virtual classroom tools, has raised $23.4 million in its second seed round. The deal values the company at $134.4 million and brings its total funding to $36.4 million.

PreceptorLink Acquired by AMOpportunities

AMOpportunities, a healthcare training platform specializing in clinical rotation development, acquired PreceptorLink, a nurse practitioner–owned company that provides preceptor matching services for NP, APRN, and nursing students across the U.S. The partnership expands AMO’s reach into additional health professions and creates one of the largest combined providers of clinical placements for medical and advanced practice nursing learners.

amopportunities.org

Hack The Box Acquires LetsDefend

Hack The Box has acquired LetsDefend, a cybersecurity training platform specializing in blue team skills and SOC simulations. Founded in 2021, LetsDefend reports a community of more than 320,000 users in over 150 countries. Hack The Box said the acquisition will unite the two platforms’ communities and broaden training options with integrated offensive and defensive labs, simulations, and AI-driven scenarios.

hackthebox.com

BirdBrain Technologies Acquires Key Assets from Strawbees

BirdBrain Technologies, a subsidiary of RW Thrive that offers STEM, robotics, and makerspaces, acquired key assets from Strawbees AB, a subsidiary of Sweden’s Albert Group. With the acquisition, the combined offering adds Strawbees’ modular building kits and curriculum to BirdBrain’s portfolio, expanding project-based learning tools that support creativity, engineering, and coding in classrooms and makerspaces.

24-7pressrelease.com

Modern Campus Receives Growth Investment from Providence Equity Partners

Modern Campus, a provider of software that helps higher education institutions manage the student journey from enrollment to workforce readiness, has received a majority growth investment from Providence Equity Partners. The company’s platform spans web content management, curriculum and catalog solutions, student engagement tools, and a student information system for lifelong learning. Providence plans to support new product development and acquisitions to expand the platform’s capabilities.

provequity.com

Climb Credit Acquires Career Karma

Climb Credit, a student payment platform focused on career training, acquired Career Karma, an upskilling platform that connects students with bootcamps, training programs, and mentorship resources. The aim is to broaden Climb’s role beyond financing into program discovery and enrollment support, opening pathways in fields such as healthcare and skilled trades while helping schools attract better-qualified candidates.

prnewswire.com

Eagle Merchant Partners Invests in Guidewell Education and Acquires Reach Cambridge

Eagle Merchant Partners has made a growth investment in Guidewell Education, an education services platform that provides college counseling, test preparation, tutoring, and academic mentorship to students in the U.S. and Europe. Guidewell has expanded through multiple acquisitions since 2021, including Applerouth Tutoring, Summit Educational Group, UES Education, Metro Academic Prep, and College MatchPoint. Alongside Eagle’s investment, Guidewell acquired Reach Cambridge, a U.K.-based summer academic and cultural program hosted at the University of Cambridge. With Eagle’s backing, Guidewell plans to accelerate growth, expand services, and pursue additional acquisitions globally.

prnewswire.com

Taurus Capital Partners Invests in Pathlight Learning

Taurus Capital Partners made a platform investment in Pathlight Learning, a franchisee of Primrose Schools. The partnership is intended to support Pathlight in opening more schools and expanding access to early childhood education. This marks Taurus’ third platform transaction since its founding in 2022.

businesswire.com

EdSights Raises $80 Million

EdSights, an AI-powered student voice platform, has secured a growth investment from JMI Equity. The company reports working with more than 240 U.S. colleges and universities to improve retention by using AI-driven, SMS-based engagement to identify at-risk students, and said it will use the funding to expand its product platform and team.

businesswire.com

First Children Services Receives Strategic Growth Investment

First Children Services, a provider of behavioral health and special education services for children in New Jersey and Pennsylvania, received a strategic growth investment from New Jersey-based Station Partners. First Children Services said the investment is intended to support the company’s growth and expand access to services for children in need.

prnewswire.com

CHERRY TREE EDUCATION FOR-PROFIT 50 INDEX

Cherry Tree created the Education For-Profit 50 Index representing a group of publicly traded for-profit education companies. The For-Profit Education 50 Index consists of companies in the Pre-K-12, Postsecondary Education, Training and Development, Education Products and Services, and International Education Company segments for-profit education industry.

* EV=Enterprise Value

MONTHLY COMMENTARY

Cherry Tree is very happy to announce the return of an incredibly strong investment banker to our team. After spending a few years in Silicon Valley working for a publicly-traded education technology firm, Ben Huss is returning as a Director. He’ll be focusing on both education and technology engagements, and his experience with SaaS companies and those employing AI are especially notable. Former clients know well why we’re excited to have him back! He adds a fresh perspective, is exceptionally bright yet humble, has deep M&A experience, and lives the Cherry Tree values of putting clients first. This month, Ben takes a turn at the Monthly Commentary:

The big winners are the big winners

Last week, we sat in the boardroom and discussed the various LLMs that our friends, colleagues, industry influencers, clients and ourselves are using: OpenAI (Microsoft), Gemini (Google), Anthropic (Amazon), Grok (Elon Musk), and Llama (Meta). Somebody asked, are the others? No, there really aren’t.

We spend a lot of time in the edtech industry, a place that is perceived to see significant innovation from this boom of accessibility to frontier LLM models. Naturally, people ask who the big winners will be. My answer is always the same — the big winners are the big winners.

Across the learn-to-earn landscape, technology, curriculum and services providers are investing heavily in AI-enablement. Ambitious statements have been made in terms of unlocking major gains in student outcomes (I genuinely hope they do). The industry is building on top of the big LLMs in a wide variety of ways. For some, it’s simply about creating content faster and cheaper. For others, it’s about something more complex, like advanced analytics and dynamic assessments. And for many, it’s just an AI chatbot (powered by the aforementioned LLMs) “wrapped” in an edtech interface. If you want to dig deeper into how different sub-sectors are leveraging AI, reach out—we’d love to chat.

A fact I simply cannot ignore: nearly every education platform is writing a monthly check to one of the big tech companies for the LLM technology that underpins these new solutions. Generally, those contracts are usage-based so those checks will get bigger if the industry increases adoption. The LLM providers use cloud computing hosted by Microsoft, Amazon, Google and Oracle - usually running on NVIDIA designed chips. And yes, I know most companies have been writing these companies checks for years anyways. My point is that the check size is getting bigger and the reliance deeper. Again, the big winners are the big winners.

I don’t aim to be an alarmist. There will be winners in education technology, likely a mix of incumbents and new arrivals that innovate using AI. We’re still in the early innings of this investment cycle. We’ve been talking about advanced assessments and personalization for years. This could help make that a reality. Others will really have to dig in to stay relevant. Regardless, innovation in edtech will be foundationally built on LLMs developed, deployed and hosted by big tech.

Composed by a human, edited with AI. If you’d like a confidential conversation with a real human from Cherry Tree about your company’s prospects and strategic alternatives for exiting, merging, acquiring, or obtaining venture financing, and how trends in education affect your prospects, please contact us at 952-893-9012.

About Cherry Tree & Associates:

Cherry Tree is a Minneapolis-based investment banking firm with more than four decades of transaction experience, with education being a primary segment focus. Our services include Sell-Side M&A where ownership wants to either realize their liquidity goals or desires to recapitalize their business to better position it for future growth. Additionally, we represent Buy-Side clients in efforts to add acquisitions to complement their organic growth efforts.

Prepared by:

Ben Huss, Director

bhuss@cherrytree.com

952.253.6017

www.cherrytree.com

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Important Disclosures

The information included in this publication has been obtained from public sources, and is not based upon private or confidential Cherry Tree information. Cherry Tree gathers its data from sources it considers reliable. However, it does not guarantee the accuracy or completeness of the information provided within this publication. Any opinions presented reflect the current judgment of the authors and are subject to change. Cherry Tree makes no warranties, expressed or implied, regarding the accuracy of this information or any opinions expressed by the authors. Officers, directors, partners of Cherry Tree and Cherry Tree proprietary investment funds may have positions in the securities of the companies discussed, and certain affiliates of Cherry Tree may recommend to specific clients the purchase and sale of securities discussed in the publication. This publication does not constitute a recommendation with respect to the securities of any company discussed herein, and it should not be construed as such. Cherry Tree or its affiliates may from time to time provide investment banking or related services to these companies. Like all Cherry Tree employees, the authors of this publication receive compensation that is affected by overall firm profitability. We undertake no obligation to update any information in this publication.

The Education For-Profit (EFP) 50 Index is a hypothetical index, and does not reflect an actual investment portfolio. Comparisons between the EFP 50 Index and the S&P 500 are for illustrative purposes only. Correlations in performance information for the EFP 50 Index and the S&P 500 should not be relied upon as indicative of risks involved in owning or holding a portfolio of securities similar to the EFP 50 Index. Past performance should not be relied upon as indicative of future performance.