Pluralsight acquires A Cloud Guru in bid to close cloud skills gap

Pluralsight has completed its acquisition of A Cloud Guru (ACG), the cloud skills development platform, with the overall focus on solving the growing cloud skills gap.

Pluralsight had previously announced in June that it had entered into a definitive agreement to acquire ACG following Vista Equity Partners' recent acquisition of Pluralsight.

According to Pluralsight, cloud computing continues to experience massive growth for large enterprises around the world, increasing the need for cloud skill development to keep pace.

Research shows that the vast majority of IT decision makers believe that the shortage of cloud skills is their number one challenge.

To resolve this issue, Pluralsight states it will combine the power of A Cloud Guru's certification courses, hands-on labs and sandboxes, exams and quizzes with the existing library of Pluralsight Skills cloud courses and hands-on learning experiences.

Overall, the joint organisation will be better positioned to meet increasing market demand for cloud skill development, according to the company.

Pluralsight co-founder and CEO Aaron Skonnard says, "For businesses around the world and across all industries, cloud transformation is one of their most important technology initiatives and closing the growing cloud skills gap is their single biggest challenge in meeting it.

"As the leader in technology skill development for large enterprises around the world, we are determined to be their trusted partner to solve it.

He says, "With our acquisition of A Cloud Guru, we are now positioned to deliver the most comprehensive solution for driving cloud maturity at scale through an all-in-one solution for cloud skill development."

A Cloud Guru co-founder and CEO Sam Kroonenburg says, "Technology alone won't transform businesses, a continuous flow of new skills, creativity and innovation will.

"Since its inception, A Cloud Guru has empowered enterprises to unleash the cloud's full potential by aligning talent, technology and vision.

Kroonenburg says, "Together Pluralsight and ACG will chart an accelerated path to success at every stage of cloud maturity while driving cloud adoption and innovation within corporations."

William Blair - Company LLC acted as the exclusive financial advisor to Pluralsight and Vista in the transaction, with Kirkland - Ellis LLP serving as legal counsel.

J.P. Morgan Securities LLC served as the exclusive financial advisor to A Cloud Guru and Latham - Watkins LLP served as legal counsel.

Pluralsight is a technology workforce development company that aims to help companies and teams build better products by developing critical skills, improving processes and gaining insights through data.

Pluralsight Skills is designed to help enterprises build technology skills at scale with expert-authored courses on important technologies, including cloud, artificial intelligence and machine learning, data science, and security, among others.

Skills also includes tools to align skill development with business objectives, virtual instructor-led training, hands-on labs, skill assessments and analytics. Flow provides engineering teams with actionable data and visibility into workflow patterns to accelerate the delivery of products and services.