An Amsterdam publishing company has bought Baltimore-based Osmosis and wants to take its brand of educational videos global.
The sale to Elsevier was announced last week. The price of the sale was not disclosed.
“Osmosis” is a medical term referring to a cell’s ability to absorb liquid through its membrane. More broadly, the term means an effortless absorption of knowledge. Osmosis, the company, draws from both definitions. Osmosis specializes in making easy-to-understand videos on medical topics for students, academics, healthcare workers and more. Its YouTube channel has more than 2 million followers.
Osmosis’s cofounder Shiv Gaglani called the acquisition a "dream come true." Osmosis had been growing well, Gaglani said, but he was looking for a partner that could take what the company had built and distribute it to more people. The acquisition will allow Osmosis to eventually produce content in languages like Spanish and Mandarin, he said, and help the company reach its goal of educating 1 billion people by 2025.
"We went from two people to 70, and now we're part of more than 8,000 people at Elsevier," Gaglani said, adding that the deal had already "exceeded expectations."
Elsevier is a publishing company founded in 1880 that branched into research and education with an emphasis on the medical field, according to its website. The company says it has more than 8,100 employees worldwide. Elsevier is owned by RELX, an information and analytics company based in London.
In a YouTube video last week, executives from Elsevier noted how Osmosis will complement the company's existing offers.
“Visualization is critical for our learners, and the Osmosis team has shown true brilliance in making medical knowledge more accessible,” Jan Herzhoff, the president of health markets at Elsevier said in the video. “We want to give our learners superpowers by bringing together Elsevier’s breadth and depth in healthcare and Osmosis’s highly engaging video capabilities. Together I believe we can create a truly global Osmosis of medical knowledge.”
Gaglani said he started working on Osmosis in 2011 with Ryan Haynes when they were medical students at Johns Hopkins University. They formally cofounded Osmosis in 2016. The BBJ reported in 2019 that the company had raised $4 million in Series A funding, following a $3 million haul a year prior.
Schools like the University of Miami, Louisiana State University, the University of Toledo and more use the company’s educational material, according to Osmosis’s website.
Gaglani said Osmosis has 70 employees, about five of whom are in Maryland, and more than 100 contractors who contribute to the educational platform. Since the coronavirus pandemic, the company adopted a flexible working policy, he said. There are no specific plans to recruit or change offices, but Gaglani said he hopes to add employees in Baltimore in the future.
He called Baltimore the "spiritual heart" of Osmosis. Gaglani said he has a house near Patterson Park and is especially grateful for the local investors who "made us who we are today."
