General Atlantic to buy out SoftBank's entire 15% stake in game-based online learning service Kahoot for about $152M; SoftBank spent $215M+ for the stake
SoftBank's retreat from its past investing exuberance continues apace. This morning, Kahoot, the Norwegian startup that provides …
Context & Ripple Effects
Kahoot was one of SoftBank's marquee pandemic-era edtech bets: a $215M check in October 2020 on top of a mid-2020 Oslo raise that valued the company around $1.4B, followed by an up-to-$500M acquisition of classroom portal Clever. Two years on, General Atlantic is taking SoftBank's entire 15% for about $152M — a roughly $63M markdown on the original entry, and a clear repricing of the remote-learning surge.
For SoftBank, the move rhymes with an old playbook: the 2016 sale of most of its GungHo stake, also framed as portfolio cleanup. And it points at where Kahoot itself was headed — the company later agreed to a Goldman Sachs-led all-cash take-private at $1.7B, confirming that public-market marks had fallen below what private buyers would pay.
First-order effects
- General Atlantic acquires a 15% block in Kahoot at roughly $63M below SoftBank's 2020 entry price, becoming one of the Norwegian company's largest shareholders at a reset valuation.
- SoftBank exits its flagship edtech position at a loss, converting an illiquid Oslo-listed stake into cash as it retreats from the investments made during the remote-education boom.
Second-order effects
- The sale establishes a markdown benchmark for Kahoot's equity below its 2020 financing round, pressuring other pandemic-era edtech backers still holding post-surge stakes to mark down or sell.
- Repeating the GungHo-style block sale lets SoftBank raise cash without an IPO exit even as its shares trade at roughly a 50% discount to net asset value — reinforcing secondary sales as its preferred route out of late-cycle growth positions.
Third-order effects
- Kahoot's subsequent $1.7B take-private shows the structural endpoint of this repricing: growth companies leaving public markets entirely when listed valuations sit below private-era marks.
- If the pattern holds, pandemic-vintage edtech positions clear through discounted secondaries to value-oriented buyers like General Atlantic, rather than through public-market exits — shifting who owns scaled education platforms and at what basis.
The trend: SoftBank is unwinding its pandemic-era growth portfolio through discounted secondary sales, transferring stakes from momentum-era investors to buyers willing to underwrite reset valuations.