Intel took a big step toward its goal of making classrooms more interactive and academically fun by acquiring education startup Kno.
Kno was founded in 2009 and is known for unveiling an educational tablet around the time Apple launched the first iPad.
Financial details on the purchase is being kept confidential at the moment. Kno is a company that started as a hardware business and later pivoted into software via apps that allowed students to read interactive versions of digitized textbooks. Kno has raised over $73 million in venture capital from top firms like Andreessen Horowitz and SV Angel. Rumors of an acquisition have been swirling for several months now as investors were pushing for the company to find an exit opportunity.
Intel's vice president of the Sales and Marketing Group and World Ahead Program general manager John Galvin has confirmed the purchase on a blog post.
"The acquisition of Kno boost Intel's global digital content library to more than 225,000 higher education and K-12 titles through existing partnerships with 75 educational publishers," read the post. "We're looking forward to combining our expertise with Kno's rich content so that together, we can help teachers create classroom environments and personalized learning experiences that lead to student success."
Kno's entire team will make the transition except co-founder and CEO Osman Rashid. In speaking with TechCrunch, Galvin admitted that he and Rashid didn't see eye-to-eye.
"He was definitely the figurehead behind it," Galvin said. "His direction was to continue with a North American focus and I want to go international; and for us to go international, that' about integrating with Intel's sales teams, working on bringing this to new markets."
Currently, Apple is holding a 94 percent share of the educational market in the U.S. The Kno buy allows Intel not only to plunge into the education sector and but also gives it a software platform for its hardware shell.
