Noodle, a New York-based fastest-growing online education network of universities, employers, and learners, has announced the acquisition of Meteor Learning, a high-growth company with deep expertise in serving the needs of adult learners.
However, the amount of the deal was not disclosed.
Meteor Learning’s higher education and employer partners are now part of Noodle’s network, a Certified B corporation. This addition enhances Noodle’s capacity to assist its partners in becoming more resilient, responsive, and efficient.
Meteor Learning was founded on the belief that aligning education with labour market competencies is the most excellent approach to boosting productivity, closing the wage gap, and delivering on the promise of everlasting employment. The company aims to provide an unprecedented return on education to assist learners in achieving their career goals and objectives. The platform provides learners with a broad portfolio of skills-based programming developed and validated with higher education and employer partners. Its focus on skills-based programs catalyzes Noodle’s University-to-Employer service, addressing some of the most significant workforce challenges in Nursing and Education.
Commenting on the acquisition, Founder & CEO of Noodle, John Katzman, said:
Meteor extends our capacity and reach. I am very excited to work with Bill and Donna, who bring tremendous insight and experience to the team. This acquisition will expand our consulting practice with leadership, expertise, methodologies and proven results to solve a unique challenge – How does higher ed best leverage technology and data to execute against their strategic goals?
With this deal, Noodle supports over 65 top US and UK universities through aligned learning design, marketing, recruiting, support, strategy and technology services. It provides these services and internal resources at its partner universities to address challenges and opportunities that higher education faces.
Founder of Meteor Learning, William Rieders, commented:
This acquisition will provide Meteor Learning partners with additional scale, expanded services and innovative new models to support greater flexibility, efficiency and internal capacity building. Universities seek a strategy, services and technology partner to help navigate the rapidly changing post-secondary market. The two organisations’ combination gives us much more capacity to be their strategic partner.
As part of the transaction, Meteor’s founders, William Rieders and Donna Ritchie, will join the Noodle leadership team and oversee Noodle’s consultancy practice, delivering strategic insights and operational effectiveness for its partners.
Founded in 2013 by John Katzman, Noodle works as a strategic partners to create online and hybrid programs that enhance student-faculty engagement, raise capacity and resilience, lower operational costs, and facilitate collaboration within its network of institutions. It aims to make education more accessible and affordable by offering an alternative to the traditional online program management (OPM) model. In 2022, the firm launched an employer partnerships service to help companies find, retain, and maximize the performance of great employees, and the Noodle Learning Platform, which allows students to discover the best pathways for their career aspirations and then upskill in a socially engaging, expert-supported way.
Noodle completed the acquisition of Hubble Studios, a global e-learning design firm, earlier this year. With this acquisition, the startup has made its international debut, expanding to seven nations, including the United States, South Africa, Australia, England, Germany, Switzerland, and Singapore.
