Blackboard Llc. was founded in 1997 by Michael Chasen and Matthew Pittinsky and began as a consulting firm contracting to the non-profit IMS Global Learning Consortium.[1] Chasen and Pittinsky started Blackboard upon leaving KPMG Consulting where they both had worked as part of the company’s Higher Education practice.[2] In 1998, the company merged with CourseInfo LLC, a small software provider that originated at Cornell University and was founded by Daniel Cane and Stephen Gilfus.[2][3][4] The combined company became known as Blackboard Inc. The first line of e-learning products was branded Blackboard CourseInfo,[5] until the CourseInfo brand was dropped in 2000.[6] The product was initially given to teachers for free to try out and then was licensed to schools.[7] The new company made a profit in its first year, and its sales in 1998 approached US$1 million.[2] Other early products included Blackboard Classroom and Blackboard Campus.[8]
By the late 1990s and early 2000s, the company had become the leading learning management system[9] This expansion was initially funded through venture capital from a number of investors, including Pearson PLC, Dell, AOL, The Carlyle Group and Novak Biddle Venture Partners.[10][11]
Overseas expansion began in the early 2000s, growing to include Asia, Australia and Europe in its service area.[12] In particular, through a partnership with a Chinese education company, Blackboard also began providing software services to many universities in China.[13]
Blackboard went public in June 2004 under the stock market ticker BBBB.[14] Sale of shares in the initial public offering raised an estimated $70 million for the company,[9] making it the second-most successful technology IPO of that year.[15]
In 2006, Blackboard completed the acquisition of its largest competitor, WebCT Inc, enlarging its share of the higher education market to between 65 and 75 percent.[7][16][17]
Over the next five years, the company invested in a series of new products and acquisitions, expanding beyond the learning management system market.[18] New products released during this time include Blackboard Xythos,[19] Blackboard Connect, Blackboard Mobile, Blackboard Collaborate, and Blackboard Analytics.[20][18]
By 2011, Blackboard was used by over half of colleges and universities in the US.[21] On July 1, 2011, Blackboard agreed to a $1.64 billion buyout by an investor group led by Providence Equity Partners, which was completed on October 4.[22][23] Following the sale, Providence Equity Partners merged Edline, its K-12 learning system, with Blackboard. Edline was later renamed Blackboard Engage.[24][25]
Jay Bhatt succeeded Chasen as CEO of the company in October 2012.[26] Bhatt came to the company after serving as the CEO of Progress Software.[27] As CEO of Blackboard, Bhatt combined the company's product portfolio into offerings called solutions.[28][29] He also restructured the company by market (including North America and International) rather than by product, and consolidated product development and management under new executives.[30] It was reported in July 2014 that approximately 500 of Blackboard's 3,000 employees were hired between 2013 and 2014.[29]
The company's key focuses under Bhatt's leadership have been: student-driven learning solutions; investing in Blackboard Learn, the company's core product;[31] integrating the company’s portfolio of products; and building education service offerings, such as online program management.[20][32][33] In 2013, the company introduced a platform to host massive open online courses called MOOCs, and it introduced student profiles and databases in 2014.[20][31][27] Bhatt also changed the company's strategy for acquiring new businesses. Rather than purchasing competitors, Bhatt has stated he prefers to acquire companies based on their innovations.[31]
In July 2014, Bhatt announced multiple product changes, including a redesign of Blackboard's UX to an interface resembling iOS, expanding the deployment options of Blackboard Learn to include self-hosted, managed hosting and public cloud, and improvements to Blackboard's mobile app.[28][29]
As of July 2014, Blackboard serves approximately 17,000 schools and organizations.[29] It holds the highest share of the education market with 75 percent of colleges and universities and more than half of K-12 districts in the US using its products and services.[34]
As of September 2014, Blackboard had acquired MyEdu,[27] Perceptis,[29] and CardSmith,[35] and Requestec[36] under Bhatt's leadership. The acquisitions reflected Bhatt's new acquisition strategy of making investments that serve students and will lead to innovations in Blackboard's core teaching and learning products.[35][28]
Blackboard has used the acquisition of other companies as a strategy to both limit competitors and enter new markets.[33][37][17] Between 2006 and 2012, the company spent more than $500 million on acquisitions.[37]
In 2001, Blackboard acquired AT&T Campuswide and CEI Special Teams, developers of ID cards that can be used for campus commerce and security.[38] The following year, the company purchased George Washington University's course management software, Prometheus.[39] Blackboard acquired SA Cash, a student ID rewards program developed by Student Advantage, in 2003.[40]
In October 2005, the company announced that it was acquiring WebCT Inc., its largest rival in the education software industry.[41] Through the acquisition, Blackboard gained over 1,400 institutional customers as well as 274 employees.[41] In the two years leading to the merger, Blackboard's most significant growth was in the elementary and secondary education client sector.[41] According to market research company Eduventures, the merger with WebCT increased the firm's share of the higher-education market to between 65 and 75 percent.[16]
Following the purchase of WebCT, Blackboard purchased content management company, Xythos Software, Inc in November 2007.[19] The company expanded into the area of emergency phone and email notifications with the acquisition of NTI Group in 2008, which became the basis for Blackboard Connect.[42][20] In 2009, the acquisition of ANGEL Learning, an education software developer, increased Blackboard's client base to nearly 6,000 educational institutions, companies and government agencies.[43] In July of the same year, the company purchased the Stanford University student-run TerribyClever Design, LLC, whose iPhone application provided the basis for the Blackboard Mobile division to develop the service for other university campuses.[44] Blackboard then acquired Saf-T-Net, provider of mobile alerts for K-12, in March 2010.[45]
In July 2010, the company purchased both Wimba, Inc. and Elluminate, Inc., providers of online and mobile collaboration tools, to form Blackboard Collaborate. The purchase of iStrategy, a data analysis firm, in December of 2010 led to the creation of Blackboard Analytics.[18] Blackboard Student Services was developed from Presidium Inc., a provider of administrative and academic support services, which Blackboard acquired in January 2011.[46]
The company merged with Edline, a provider of online communications software for K-12 schools, after Edline's owner, Providence Equity Partners, acquired Blackboard in October 2011.[47] Edline was renamed Blackboard Engage in June 2012.[24][25]
In March 2012 Blackboard acquired two companies based on Moodle's open-source software: Baltimore-based Moodlerooms Inc. and NetSpot of Adelaide, Australia. The two companies became the basis of Blackboard's Open Source Services division.[48][49]
In January 2014, Blackboard made its first acquisition under the leadership of Jay Bhatt with the purchase of MyEdu, an Austin-based online education company, which provides education and career planning tools for college students. The acquisition was seen as Blackboard stepping toward a new focus on student-based software according to The Washington Post.[30] The acquisition was followed by the purchase of Perceptis, a provider of help desk and administrative services, in July 2014.[50][51] In August 2014, Blackboard acquired CardSmith, a company that offers cards for student credentials and on-campus payments. Through the acquisition, Blackboard acquired 200 customers as well as cloud-based services for its Blackboard Transact product.[35] In September 2014, The company acquired Requestec, a provider of Web-based Real Time Communication (WebRTC) technology that allows IP telephony, video conferencing and instant messaging directly within desktop and mobile browsers.[36]