The technology investment company Prosus has announced its intent to acquire the online development community Stack Overflow for $1.8 billion. According to Stack Overflow, this acquisition will enable it to continue to operate as an independent company, but with the backing of a “global technology powerhouse.”
“Prosus is one of the world’s leading technology investors with stakes in companies such as Tencent, Brainly, BYJU’s, Codecademy, OLX, PayU, Remitly and Udemy. Their massive scale and reach improves the lives of around a fifth of the world’s population. Prosus’s mission is to build leading companies that empower and enrich communities, as demonstrated by the many community-focused and EdTech companies they work with. This makes Prosus the perfect company to acquire Stack Overflow, and Stack Overflow the ideal investment in their focus on the future of workplace learning and collaboration,” Prashanth Chandrasekar, CEO of Stack Overflow, wrote in a post.
Chandrasekar went on to explain that the acquisition will provide the company with more resources and support to grow its platform on a global level. For instance, it sees deeper partnerships, international expansion and M&A opportunities in the future. “Our intention is for our public platform to be an invaluable resource for developers and technologists everywhere and for our SaaS collaboration and knowledge management platform, Stack Overflow for Teams, to reach thousands more global enterprises, allowing them to accelerate product innovation and increase productivity by unlocking institutional knowledge,” he wrote.
According to Prosus, it decided to acquire the developer community because of its popularity within the developer and technologist community, as well as for the company’s knowledge management and collaboration solution Stack Overflow for Teams.
Larry Illg, CEO of EdTech at Prosus stated: “With enduring skills shortages and ever-evolving needs within technology organizations, technology training has emerged as the largest and fastest growing segment of corporate learning and development. As an operator of businesses across 90+ countries, we understand the needs of technologists and developers, particularly in high-growth markets. In addition to further scaling its community in the markets we know well, we want to help Stack Overflow Teams to expand within enterprises to address an underserved opportunity to transform their technology learning and collaboration.”
