McGraw-Hill Acquires Equity Stake in busuu, Global Mobile Language Learning Platform

NEW YORK and LONDON, July 15, 2015 /PRNewswire/ -- McGraw-Hill, a learning science company, today announced that it has taken a €6 million (approximately $6.5 million) minority equity stake in busuu, the world's largest social network for language learning with more than 55 million users. The transaction includes an agreement that will give McGraw-Hill exclusive global rights to distribute busuu to B2B customers, including schools, private language institutions and corporations. Additionally, the two companies will explore adding McGraw-Hill's industry-leading adaptive learning technology to busuu products.

Founded in 2008, busuu has been adding as many as 100,000 users each day. The product has a strong market presence in Brazil, Russia, China, Turkey, Germany and the U.S. The company offers free and paid audio-visual language courses for 12 languages and includes direct interaction with native speakers around the world. Approximately two-thirds of busuu's users access the platform via mobile devices.

"We see tremendous opportunities with the powerful combination McGraw-Hill's global reach and the scale and innovative mobile solutions of busuu," said Mark Dorman, president of McGraw-Hill's International & Professional group. "The global market for language instruction totals $60 billion annually and is growing rapidly. The innovative and mobile busuu solution complements our digital offerings and opens a number of new sales opportunities for our company."

"For busuu, this alliance allows us to quickly grow our market penetration with a trusted name such as McGraw-Hill," added Bernhard Niesner, CEO of busuu. "We are especially excited to explore adding McGraw-Hill's adaptive capabilities to our platform and believe this will revolutionize the way people learn languages."