Prosus NV has agreed to buy technology knowledge-sharing platform Stack Overflow for $1.8 billion, adding a further online-learning business to the Dutch e-commerce giant’s growing portfolio.
The company, which has also invested in U.S. education firms Brainly and Udemy, sees technology training as “the largest and fastest growing segment of corporate learning and development,” it said in a statement. Stack Overflow, a question and answer website, has more than 100 million visitors every month.
“With this new deal, our total investment in the sector is north of $3 billion,” Larry Illg, Prosus’s head of its Ventures division said in an interview. “I expect a lot of activity in the coming weeks and months” in the $10-trillion sector, Illg said.
Prosus is investing heavily at a time e-commerce is booming, with the coronavirus pandemic increasing online demand for everything from food delivery to job training. The Amsterdam-based company raised as much as $14.6 billion from the sale of shares in Chinese internet giant Tencent Holdings Ltd. earlier this year, quadrupling its cash reserves.
Prosus was created via a 2019 spin off from Cape Town-based Naspers Ltd., Africa’s biggest company.
