Manchester-based AppLearn has been acquired by US firm Nexthink for an undisclosed sum.
The Digital Adoption Platform (DAP) vendor secured a $25m (£20m) investment from K1 Investment Management in 2019 followed by an eight figure raise from Silicon Valley Bank and Northern Powerhouse Investment Fund – Maven Equity Finance in January 2022 to scale its international reach.
Nexthink is a leader in digital employee experience management software and pioneered the Digital Employee Experience (DEX), which refers to an employee’s ability to get things done by interacting with the IT environment.
Andrew Avanessian, CEO of AppLearn, said: “This is a huge move that will accelerate the power of DEX, and we’re incredibly excited to be part of it.
“Nexthink are a fantastic company and we have a shared vision of eliminating digital friction with the workplace.
“We’ve achieved a lot of AppLearn. If we rewind to 2011, AppLearn was a family-run services business offering digital transformation consultancy.
“Since then, we’ve received multiple rounds of investment, we’ve transitioned to a product-led model, we’ve acquired another business to accelerate our product capabilities.
“We’ve secured numerous workplace culture and growth awards, and we’ve been recognised by leading analyst houses. That is something everyone within this business – past and present – should be incredibly proud of.
“Combining two category leaders allows us to bring to market an end-to-end DEX solution designed to eliminate digital friction and drive ROI from software investments. I’m excited to see what the future has in store. On to the next chapter.”
In 2022 AppLearn bought Slovakian-based DAP provider YesElf, which tripled its development capacity. Avanessian joined AppLearn as COO in 2019 before becoming CEO.
Pedro Bados, co-founder and CEO of Nexthink, said: “Nexthink’s vision has consistently aimed to empower IT with full control over the digital employee experience.
“While maintaining an incident-free infrastructure is pivotal for employee productivity and satisfaction, the additional capacity to help employees learn, adapt, and extract the utmost value from their applications represents the crucial last mile of the digital experience.”
Dual headquartered in Lausanne, Switzerland and Boston, Massachusetts, Nexthink has nine offices worldwide.