Rosetta Stone Inc. just got its second new owner in the span of a year with a sale to IXL Learning Inc. of San Mateo, California.
The ink had barely dried on the language learning company’s sale to Cambium Learning Group Inc., the Veritas Capital portfolio company that acquired the Arlington firm in October for nearly $800 million.
But Cambium is only keeping Rosetta Stone subsidiary Lexia Learning, which focuses on pre-K-12 literacy tools, as reported by the Dallas Business Journal, the Washington Business Journal’s sister paper. Dallas-based Cambium struck a deal to sell Rosetta Stone to IXL in February for undisclosed terms.
IXL Learning was founded in 1998 and has been on an acquisition tear of late. It acquired Wyzant Inc., an online tutoring marketplace, in February, Vocabulary.com in March 2020 and Education.com in 2019. It also bought ACBya, which creates educational computer games and apps for kids, in 2018.
The Rosetta Stone acquisition expands IXL’s reach in the all-ages learners space, as well as the range of languages in its platforms. IXL currently offers Spanish education through its platform, as well as English-based language arts, science, math and social studies.
"The acquisition of Rosetta Stone's iconic brand greatly accelerates our efforts to teach languages to learners from all walks of life,” IXL Learning CEO Paul Mishkin said in a statement.
The announcement also cites Rosetta Stone President Matt Hulett, now listed as Rosetta Stone’s top executive on its website. John Hass, Rosetta Stone’s former CEO who oversaw the company’s shift from a consumer-facing brand to a software-as-a-service provider focused on companies and schools, left in October, according to his LinkedIn page.
"Joining IXL will allow Rosetta Stone to leverage our combined resources and make an even greater impact as people pursue language learning in record numbers," Hulett said in a statement.
Roughly 775 Rosetta Stone employees were expected to be part of the Rosetta Stone sale to IXL, the Dallas Business Journal reported. The local company had counted 1,147 total employees as of Dec. 31, 2019, the Washington Business Journal’s Andy Medici reported in August.
The IXL-Rosetta Stone announcement still lists Arlington as Rosetta Stone’s headquarters. We’ve reached out for more information on whether the local company’s new ownership expects any workforce or space changes and will update this story when we hear back.
Rosetta Stone is based in a 13,000-square-foot office at 1621 N. Kent St. in Rosslyn.
