Oslo-based online game-based learning service Kahoot plans to go private in an all-cash PE deal, led by Goldman Sachs, valuing the company at $1.7B
Context & Ripple Effects
Kahoot's arc tracks the edtech boom-bust cycle almost exactly: a $17M raise at a $100M valuation in 2018, a surge to ~$1.4B on Oslo's exchange by mid-2020, then $215M from SoftBank that October as remote education demand peaked. The company used the window to buy Clever for up to $500M and reported 2020 revenue up 247% YoY ahead of its main-market listing.
The unwind was already visible before this deal: last September General Atlantic bought out SoftBank's entire 15% stake for about $152M — well below the $215M-plus SoftBank paid — signaling the public-market repricing of pandemic-era edtech. The Goldman Sachs-led all-cash take-private at $1.7B now converts that repricing into an exit for remaining shareholders.
First-order effects
- Kahoot's public shareholders receive an all-cash exit at $1.7B, and the company delists from the Norwegian exchange into Goldman Sachs-led private ownership.
- The deal closes the loop on SoftBank's position: after General Atlantic's discounted purchase of its stake, no pandemic-era strategic backer remains on the register.
Second-order effects
- Other edtech companies that listed or raised at pandemic-peak valuations — including those that made acquisitions like Kahoot's Clever purchase — face the same choice between public-market discounts and PE take-privates.
- Goldman Sachs adds a scaled education-software asset to its PE portfolio just as growth-stage investors retreat from the sector, concentrating edtech ownership among financial buyers.
Third-order effects
- If the pattern holds, the cohort of edtech firms valued on 2020-2021 remote-learning demand consolidates into private hands, with public markets effectively done pricing the sector until revenue catches up to those peaks.
- A successful Kahoot turnaround under PE ownership would set the template for how overvalued pandemic listings get recycled — bought cheap relative to peak marks, restructured privately, re-listed only after fundamentals recover.
The trend: Pandemic-inflated edtech valuations are being unwound through take-private deals, shifting sector ownership from public markets and growth-stage strategics like SoftBank to private equity.