May 16, 2019 – Serent Capital, a San Francisco and Austin-based private equity firm focused on investing in fast-growing software and services businesses, announced that its portfolio company, Digital Architecture (“DIGARC”), has acquired new|ed (now EXPLORE), a provider of curriculum and career exploration solutions and Visual Schedule Builder (“VSB”, now REGISTER), a provider of student pathways, schedule planning, advising and registration solutions. The acquisitions complement DIGARC’s strong organic growth and accelerate its mission of enabling institutions to more effectively attract prospective students, ensure persistence and advance students’ success.
DIGARC’s Connected Curriculum™ solutions, utilized by over 700 higher education institutions worldwide, increase enrollment, accelerate curriculum agility, reduce costs and enable higher education institutions to operate more effectively for their students, faculty and staff. DIGARC’s Connected Curriculum™ solutions also include Acalog for catalog management, Curriculog for curriculum management, and SECTION for class section schedule planning.
“DIGARC is thrilled to welcome the clients and team members from VSB and new|ed into the DIGARC family.” said Angela Selden, CEO of DIGARC. “These acquisitions advance DIGARC’s mission to enable higher education institutions to leverage the power of curriculum data in new ways to deliver unmatched results for students, faculty and staff.”
VSB / REGISTER enables students to simplify scheduling and streamline registration by creating a visual calendar based on course requirements and preferred times. By streamlining student scheduling, VSB enables institutions to increase student retention, improve adherence to degree pathways, and reduce time to graduation.
New|ed / EXPLORE provides students with comprehensive curriculum and career exploration to identify academic pathways aligned with their goals. Both current and prospective students obtain valuable insights about how their past and current academic pursuits will translate into career opportunities.
“DIGARC is delivering a strong value proposition to its institutional clients as evidenced by its client loyalty and growth, and we are thrilled to support the company’s continued rapid growth through these complementary acquisitions,” said David Kennedy, Chairman of DIGARC and a Partner at Serent Capital.
Since Serent’s investment in 2016, DIGARC has grown its client base by more than 45% while expanding its suite of product offerings. Through DIGARC’s investments in product, technology, client success and sales, the company continues to be a leader in terms of clients served, clients retained and solutions deployed, better serving both its existing school partners while reaching more institutions and students.
With these acquisitions, Serent continues its active investment efforts in the education sector, with nine investments across the K12 and higher-education markets to date. Prior Serent education investments include TRA (2018), KEV Group (2018), USATestprep (2018), ArbiterSports (2017), Digital Architecture (2016), Diamond Mind (2014), and C2 Education (2011).
About DIGARC
DIGARC provides the unified platform, applications and services that connect curriculum data to align the offerings of educational providers with student success. DIGARC’s market-leading SaaS solutions streamline, track, and connect catalog, curriculum, section, career and registration data. Our unmatched client loyalty is a direct result of time savings, transparency, and an improved experience for students, faculty and staff. www.digarc.com
About Serent Capital
Serent Capital invests in growing businesses that have developed compelling solutions that address their customers' needs. As those businesses grow and evolve, the opportunities and challenges that they face change with them. Principals at Serent Capital have firsthand experience at capturing those opportunities and navigating these difficulties through their experiences as CEOs, strategic advisors and board members to successful growing businesses. By bringing its expertise and capital to bear, Serent helps growing businesses thrive. Learn more at www.serentcapital.com.
