In addition to catapulting EverFi
into the ed
tech big leagues, the fundraising round marks the debut deal for lead investor Rise, a newly established social impact investing fund managed by TPG Growth, a private equity
firm that has also backed Internet hotshots like Uber and Airbnb.
Here's a surprise turn of events: SoftBank — maker of the friendly Pepper robot and a major M&A player in the
tech world — has just announced that it is acquiring two more robotics companies from Google owner Alphabet as part of its own deeper move
into the field: it is buying
Big Dog developer Boston Dynamics and the secretive bipedal robotics
firm Schaft.