Prosus To Buy Stack Overflow For R24 Billion

Prosus, one of the largest technology investors in the world, has entered into a definitive agreement to acquire Stack Overflow for $1.8 billion (R24 billion).

Prosus plans to invest and grow Stack Overflow’s leading global developer community and SaaS collaboration platform as part of its future of workplace learning focus.

Stack Overflow, one of the 50 most popular websites in the world, has built a global company and highly engaged developer and technologist community over the last 13+ years, now serving more than 100 million people across the world every month.

Founded in 2008 as an open community-based question and answer website for the developer community, the company has expanded to include Stack Overflow for Teams, a leading knowledge management and collaboration solution that thousands of the top enterprises around the world trust.

Stack Overflow for Teams and their extensive community content have become a necessity to enterprises, having a meaningful impact on their product and technology development.

EdTech is a huge focus for Prosus, which invests in companies that help to democratize access to quality education around the world. Prosus entered the EdTech market in 2016 with investments in Brainly, Codecademy and Udemy, and has continued to expand its investments in the sector since then, with the portfolio now also including BYJU’s, Eruditus, Skillsoft, SoloLearn and now Stack Overflow.

“We are delighted to be welcoming Stack Overflow to the Prosus family as we increasingly focus on the future of workplace learning. Learning of any kind typically begins with a question and their platform is critically important for global developers when they have questions about their work,” Larry Illg, CEO of EdTech at Prosus, said.

“There is an opportunity to connect more deeply with their community through our other education platforms to further fulfill their learning needs.”

The transaction is expected to close by Q3 of 2021 and is subject to regulatory approval and customary closing conditions.

“We are excited to be joining the Prosus family, which catapults us into a new phase of growth and allows us to expand and accelerate Stack Overflow’s impact around the world,” Stack Overflow’s CEO, Prashanth Chandrasekar, said.

“Prosus’s expertise growing and nurturing communities, especially in a global context, will make our public platform even more invaluable in helping developers and technologists learn and grow.

“Given Prosus’s focus on the future of the workplace, their partnership will allow our market leading SaaS collaboration product, Stack Overflow for Teams, to reach thousands more global enterprises, allowing them to accelerate product innovation and increase productivity by unlocking institutional knowledge.”