Kahoot! was worth $7B when schools went online — sold for $1.72B when they went back

Kahoot! was a Norwegian game-based learning platform that became ubiquitous during the pandemic, when teachers worldwide used its colourful quizzes to engage students on video calls. The company went public on the Oslo stock exchange in March 2021, at a valuation of approximately $7 billion.

The $7 billion valuation priced in a permanent shift to digital learning. When schools returned to classrooms, the usage spike that had justified the multiple receded. Kahoot! had made several acquisitions during its peak, betting that the pandemic-era growth was structural rather than cyclical.

In July 2023, Kahoot! was acquired by a group of investors including Goldman Sachs Asset Management for $1.72 billion in cash — a 75% decline from the 2021 peak valuation. The company that had been a symbol of pandemic-era edtech optimism was taken private at a fraction of its public value.

The trajectory from $1.5 billion unicorn in 2020 to $7 billion public company in 2021 to $1.72 billion private acquisition in 2023 traced the exact arc of the pandemic's effect on education technology: a spike, a narrative, and a correction.