DMGT’s Hobsons Inc., an industry-leading education technology company specializing in managing post-secondary education and career planning, has sold product lines Radius, AppReview, ApplyYourself, Connect, and Retain to Campus Management, a Leeds Equity Partners portfolio company.
JEGI CLARITY (www.jegiclarity.com), the leading independent investment bank for the global media, information, marketing, software and tech-enabled services sectors, headquartered in New York, NY, represented Hobsons in this transaction. Tyton Partners co-advised on the transaction.
The acquisition continues to build out Campus Management’s solution portfolio, making it the largest and best-in-class higher education Constituent Relationship Management (CRM) provider. Through the acquisition, the company will expand to include the approximately 100-person, dedicated team of CRM and application management experts from Hobsons who will continue to design, develop, implement, and support these solutions at Campus Management.
“As we continue to evolve our CampusNexus® engagement platform, fostering communications and relationships throughout the student lifecycle, we look to constantly improve upon what we offer to the market,” said Campus Management CEO Jim Milton. “The CRM and application management products add to our already strong CampusNexus suite to achieve that goal, and the addition of the very talented Hobsons team members reinforces our mission to deliver the higher education platform and services that enable institutions to transform their academic delivery, student success, and operational efficiency, on their terms.”
Hobsons is well known for its leading K-12 college and career readiness platform Naviance, its student-college matching platform Intersect, and its higher education student success and analytics platform Starfish, and plans to concentrate on that core business moving forward. Hobsons software is used by more than 750 colleges and universities in the United States and around the globe.
“As Hobsons looks to the future, we want to focus our portfolio and continue to build upon our leadership position in Naviance, Intersect, and Starfish — business lines where we have the greatest opportunity to continue to grow, always with the aim of helping K-12 schools and districts and higher education institutions advance their student success goals,” said Hobsons CEO Kate Cassino. “We’re pleased that with Campus Management, we have found a buyer that is well-positioned to invest in the future of our CRM and application management products and committed to serving the customers using them. We are also happy that our colleagues working in these product lines will transition to a great home at Campus Management.”
We had a very positive experience with the JEGI CLARITY team where we successfully completed two transactions in parallel. The JEGI CLARITY team was incredibly responsive and consistent throughout, managing through several complexities. The partnership level was so strong that it genuinely felt like we were one team throughout the process, focused and aligned, which was key. Communication was fantastic and clear with our team as well as interested parties. The expertise they brought to the table was central to a successful process. I would definitely recommend JEGI CLARITY.
Craig Heldman, CEO, Hobsons