BUYER POOL ANALYSIS
Selling a Vocational Training to Private Equity / PE-Backed Roll-Up buyers
Private equity firms and PE-backed platform consolidators acquiring for roll-up, add-on, or platform plays. Pricing tends to lead the market for fee-viable scale, with multi-bidder competitive processes above the EBITDA floor.
Quick answers
- What multiple does this buyer pool pay?
- Median EV/EBITDA 11.44x across 4 disclosed deals (P25: 3.72x, P75: 22.12x). Median EV/Revenue 1.91x across 8 deals. Median deal value: $534.41M.
- How many disclosed transactions?
- 8 deals total (8 from 2018+), filtered to Private Equity / PE-Backed Roll-Up acquirers of vocational training businesses.
- Most active buyers
- Veritas Capital Fund Management, L.L.C (2) · Coursera, Inc. (1) · Sterling Partners (1) · American Public Education, Inc. (1) · Oriental Eminent Ventures Limited (1) · 2U, LLC (:TWOU.Q) (1)
Recent disclosed deals
Private Equity / PE-Backed Roll-Up acquisitions of vocational training businesses with named target, named acquirer, and disclosed financials.
| Year | Target | Acquirer | EV | EV/EBITDA | EV/Rev |
|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| 2025 | Udemy, Inc. | Coursera, Inc. | $676.0M | 151.6x | 0.85x |
| 2024 | Keypath Education International, Inc. | Sterling Partners | $47.7M | — | 0.72x |
| 2022 | Houghton Mifflin Harcourt Company | Veritas Capital Fund Management, L.L.C | $2671.0M | 15.3x | 2.54x |
| 2020 | Rasmussen College, Inc. | American Public Education, Inc. | $325.5M | 7.6x | 1.27x |
| 2019 | Ambow Education Holding Ltd. | Oriental Eminent Ventures Limited | $3.5M | 2.4x | 0.30x |
| 2019 | Trilogy Education Services, Inc. | 2U, LLC (:TWOU.Q) | $750.0M | — | 7.73x |
What this buyer pool prices for
Private equity acquirers price for scale and roll-up arbitrage. They pay up for businesses that fit a platform thesis — recurring revenue mix above 30%, technician/professional depth, clean financials, and a management layer that survives integration. The same vocational training can command 1.5x to 2x the multiple of an individual-buyer transaction simply because the PE buyer is acquiring a platform piece, not an owner-operated shop.
Methodology note
Multiples shown are computed from disclosed M&A transactions in the ExitValue.ai database, filtered to vocational training businesses acquired by private equity / pe-backed roll-up buyers. EV/EBITDA outliers outside the [0.5x, 60x] band and EV/Revenue outliers outside [0.05x, 25x] are excluded from medians. Where available, post-2018 transactions are weighted; otherwise the all-time sample is used. Deal counts shown reflect deals with disclosed financials only — total transaction count for this buyer pool is typically 2-3x larger. Full methodology
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