Trive Capital and Epic Partners have partnered to acquire Pryor Learning, a provider of corporate training, credentialing, and educational content to small and medium sized businesses.
Pryor provides in-person and online training courses to individuals, teams, and organizations in more than 20 subject areas including Administrative Assistant, Front Desk & Reception; Grammar & Business Writing, Computer Software, Customer Service, Evelyn Wood Speed Reading, Finance & Accounting, Human Resources, Information Technology, Management & Leadership, Microsoft Excel and Office, OSHA and Workplace Safety, QuickBooks, and Sales Training.
Pryor’s course catalog totals more than 5,000 online courses and since its founding in 1970 has provided its education services to more than 3 million businesses and 13 million students. Pryor Learning was founded by Fred Pryor and is headquartered southwest of Kansas City in Mission, Kansas.
At the closing of the transaction, Steven Riehs has been named as the new chief executive officer of Pryor. Mr. Riehs was most recently the senior vice president of Strategic Solutions and Innovation at International Education Corporation, a national provider of post-secondary career education and a portfolio company of Berggruen Holdings. Earlier in his career he held CEO, COO, and other senior leadership positions with education companies Adtalem, Maxim Partners, and Kaplan.
“Pryor has a rich history of being the go-to provider for business content that is easy to access, affordable, and effective,” said Mr. Riehs. “I am honored to lead the company at this exciting juncture in hybrid learning. I look forward to working alongside our talented team to keep innovating our offering and exceeding our customers’ expectations.”
“We are thrilled to partner with a leading training provider with digital delivery expertise, a diversified customer base, high quality management team, and leading content access,” said Chris Zugaro, a partner at Trive. “Pryor is a best-in-class solution for an underserved customer base, allowing its users to successfully complete mandatory training and employee upskilling. Our next phase of growth will include organic investments to enhance the customer experience as well as acquisitions that will build on our proprietary content base and tech-enabled platform.”
Trive invests from $10 million to $250 million of debt and equity in North America-headquartered companies with revenues of $40 million to $1.5 billion. Trive is industry-agnostic but has specific experience in aerospace and defense, automotive, building products, business services, chemicals, and consumer goods.
In April 2022, Trive held final closings of two new funds, Trive Capital Fund IV LP and Structured Capital Fund I LP, with an aggregate $1.95 billion of capital commitments. Trive was founded in 2012 by Managing Partner Conner Searcy and Partner Chris Zugaro and is headquartered in Dallas.
Epic Partners is an investor in North America-based education and training related businesses that have revenues of $10 million to $50 million and EBITDA of at least $2 million. The firm is led by Partner Robert Puopolo and is headquartered in New York City.
Tyton Partners was the financial advisor to Pryor Learning on this transaction.
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