Pluralsight to acquire Texas based A Cloud Guru

Pluralsight has agreed to acquire Texas based A Cloud Guru. The financial terms of the deal were not disclosed.

Founded in 2015 by Sam and Ryan Kroonenburg, A Cloud Guru offers training and hands-on labs ranging from Amazon Web Services, Google Cloud Platform, and Microsoft Azure cloud platform. The company has raised a total of $40M in funding in three 3 funding rounds, according to CrunchBase. 

In 2019, A Cloud Guru acquired Linux Academy, another training provider, creating the largest training platform for cloud computing (AWS, Azure & Google Cloud), DevOps, containers, security, big data, machine learning, and artificial intelligence.

Co-founder and CEO of Pluralsight, Aaron Skonnard, said, "Technology is the number one differentiator for all businesses and the technology skills of your team is what determines success or failure. Nowhere is that more apparent than with cloud technologies. To meet the needs of our customers and best support their cloud transformations, we are determined to deliver the most comprehensive solution for driving cloud maturity at scale. With the acquisition of A Cloud Guru, we can now provide an all-in-one solution to accelerate the cloud skill development journey for large enterprise customers and individual learners."

Co-founder and CEO, A Cloud Guru, Sam Kroonenburg, said, "ACG and Pluralsight were founded to solve the same problem—closing the technology skills gap by democratizing access to technical education. Within our shared missions, we’ve taken different but complementary approaches. Both approaches have proven to resonate strongly with customers who want depth and breadth in tech education. I am excited by the next phase of our mission in which, together, we will build the next-generation platform for hands-on learning across all of technology."

According to A Cloud Guru's State of Cloud Learning report, more than 80% of cloud leaders identify lack of internal skills and knowledge as a top barrier to cloud success. 

A Cloud Guru's training content will complement the library of Pluralsight Skills cloud courses and hands-on learning experiences to enhance Pluralsight's market position. It will further help Pluralsight in meeting market demand for cloud skill development, notes the announcement.

The acquisition is expected to close in the later part of 2021.