‘Double unicorn’ Go1 shrugs off downturn with UK acquisition Anders Pink

This Brisbane start-up is now worth more than $2bn and has swooped on a UK acquisition, as other start-ups lay off staff.

Brisbane ‘double unicorn’ edtech start-up Go1 is shrugging off the downturn plaguing most privately held tech companies, acquiring UK-based content curation provider Anders Pink for an undisclosed sum, with boss Andrew Barnes declaring there’ll be no need for lay-offs, at least for now.

Go1 has a stated goal of reaching a billion workers with its upskilling, reskilling and knowledge lessons, and Mr Barnes said that the acquisition of Anders Pink, which provides workers with targeted content feeds for relevant topics and skills, will help it reach more workers quicker.

“As a child I loved playing with Lego, and I sort of think building a company is an adult version of that,” Mr Barnes said in an interview. “It’s great to have Anders Pink in the mix now and to be able to add what they’ve built to our existing platform.

“We’ve known their team since 2019 and worked with them in partnership, and we realised we could do so much more if we make them formally part of Go1. We’ve got this rich library of content, but I think a big gap in the market has been using data science to surface content in a much more sophisticated manner. That’s the piece of the puzzle Anders Pink has really cracked.”

Anders Pink managing director Michelle Hazelton said that nothing will change initially for her company’s clients and partners.

“Our combined value proposition with Go1 means organisations can bring the best of learning content libraries, plus high-quality web content mapped to skills into one index,” she said.

“They can search over the index using a question, phrase or skill and curate recommended results into meaningful collections for upskilling and reskilling their teams. Additionally, all of this content can be automatically mapped to a customer’s chosen skills framework, removing the need for manual analysis.

“For us it’s a perfect fit – shared curation focus, shared platform-neutral approach, shared values and ethos. It’s always hard to decide when the right moment is to join another organisation, but this was the right fit, at the right time in our growth story. Being part of Go1 gives us a bigger platform and means to bring our new products to organisations.”

Go1 doubled its valuation to $2.8bn in June 2022, achieving ‘double unicorn’ status, when it raised $100m from investors including AirTree Ventures, Blue Cloud Ventures, Madrona, Salesforce Ventures, and SoftBank Vision Fund 2. In 2022 the company doubled its customer base year-on-year, and North America is now Go1’s largest market. The company has also expanded across Europe and Southeast Asia, now offering resources to millions of individuals globally.

The founders of unicorn start-up, Go1, (left to right) Vu Tran, Chris Hood, Andrew Barnes and Chris Eigeland.

While start-up valuations are flat or down across the board amid a tech downturn, Mr Barnes said Go1 is in a strong position.

“We were fortunate in the sense that we were able to close out that capital raise and while we were doing that, the market had already turned by that point, so we were pleased with the strong support we received,” Mr Barnes said.

“We’ve not had to look at lay-offs; the round was oversubscribed and we’re well capitalised. At the same time, every business needs to look from time-to-time to make sure it’s efficient, given rising interest rates are causing a bunch of knock-on effects. As interest rates go up, every dollar becomes more precious. So how can we sort of do more with the team that we’ve got? And over the next 12 to 24 months, we don’t want to stretch ourselves too much into new markets.

“This is a marathon, not a sprint.”

The executive added there’s “no date in the calendar” regarding a potential public listing, but said it would likely be an eventual part of Go1’s journey.

“It’s not something that we’re saying, ‘hey, look, we need to do x by a certain date’, but we want to run the business in a way where we’ve got the hygiene and maturity of a public company,” he said. “That’s the really important thing, and making sure that we operate with that sort of rigour is, I think, just good practice in general.

“I suspect it’s probably part of the journey. It’s just not something where we’re running a process or what we’re particularly focused on right now.”