Folsom-based PowerSchool Holdings Inc. completed its $300 million cash acquisition Tuesday of SchoolMessenger, a provider of communications tools for the K-12 market.
Cloud-based K-12 education software company PowerSchool (NYSE: PWSC) announced in July it had a letter of intent to buy the school communication platform from West Technology Group LLC.
“Through our support of over 50 million students globally, we observe firsthand how critical communication with parents, families and caretakers is in a child’s education,” said PowerSchool CEO Hardeep Gulati, in a news release.
PowerSchool estimates that about 200 SchoolMessenger employees will join PowerSchool, spokeswoman Madeline Willman said in an email.
That addition brings PowerSchool to more than 3,400 employees worldwide, she said. PowerSchool didn't pick up a lot of locations or offices with the acquisition because SchoolMessenger had a largely remote-first hybrid business model. PowerSchool will maintain SchoolMessenger's Joplin, Missouri, office with customer support staff.
SchoolMessenger offers tools to reach parents across voice, text, email and social media, and it has a built-in automatic translator for more than 100 languages. It's been in business since 1999. SchoolMessenger serves 28 million students, and it has customer districts and schools in 50 states and Canada.
PowerSchool will integrate SchoolMessenger's technology into its portfolio of offerings for schools globally.
The combination of the communications platform of SchoolMessenger with PowerSchool's 19 different education and administration products will allow educators better access to increase family engagement for student success, the companies said.
West Technology is controlled by affiliates of funds managed by Apollo Global Management Inc. (NYSE: APO) of New York.
PowerSchool launched in 1997, offering online tracking of grades and attendance. Over the years it's added more functionality and modules to support school administrators, teachers, parents and students. PowerSchool supports 50 million students globally and more than 15,000 customers, including more than 90 of the top 100 school districts by student enrollment in the U.S., and it sells products in more than 90 countries.
This is PowerSchool’s second acquisition this year. It is its 20th acquisition in eight years. Last month it bought Neverskip, an education technology platform with 1.2 million students in India.
PowerSchool became a publicly traded company in 2021 with an initial public offering that netted the company $766 million.
