Ed Tech M&A

School Website Provider Finalsite Acquires Anthology's Blackboard K12 Community Engagement Division

• By Kristal Kuykendall
• 09/15/22

Finalsite, a website provider for K–12 schools, today announced it has acquired Anthology’s Blackboard K–12 Community Engagement division, which includes Blackboard Web Community Manager, Blackboard Connect, Blackboard Reach, Blackboard Mass Notifications, and the Blackboard Mobile Communications App, according to a news release.

The deal makes Finalsite a significantly bigger player in the K–12 digital marketing and communications software field; the company said its client base now totals over 7,000 schools and districts across 115 countries.

With the addition of Blackboard K–12, Finalsite “can provide its clients enhanced access to more solutions, services, and thought leadership designed expressly for K–12 institutions, delivered and supported by a focused team of industry experts,” the company’s announcement said.

Anthology said that selling the division will allow it “to continue its accelerated investment in Blackboard Learn Ultra, Anthology Student, and other areas of the business where Anthology can provide significant value to the global education community.”

Schools that use Blackboard Learn LMS will not be affected by the acquisition, Anthology said.

Terms of the deal were not disclosed.

Headquartered in Glastonbury, Connecticut, Finalsite provides the software and hosting for about 5,000 school and university websites; a ransomware attack targeting the company’s servers in January knocked its operations — and about 3,000 of its client websites — offline for several days.