California: The online education site Academic Earth that Steve Jobs termed could revolutionize the education industry is being acquired by an online marketing start-up Ampush Media. The strategic acquisition will enable Ampush to enhance the site’s content and technology offerings, empowering learners to find and explore high-quality educational resources online.

The 30-person company, Ampush Media, was bootstrapped in 2009 by Nick Shah, Chris Amos, and Jesse Pujji- three former Wall Street professionals and graduates of the University of Pennsylvania. The company is based out of San Francisco and has offices in New York and San Diego. It is a technology-driven online marketing start-up that helps advertisers transform clicks into digestible customer actions. The company builds proprietary analytics and automation tools that leverage social, search, and display platforms with deep experience across education, daily deals, social gaming and Fortune 500 brands.

Talking about the interest of Ampush Media in acquiring Academic Earth, Nick Shah, Co-Founder and CEO, Ampush Media, says, “Academic Earth connects a diverse student population on the web with high quality learning opportunities from world-class educators. Since its inception in 2009, the company has created a technology platform that helps students identify higher education options that fit their interests. These interests align well and with the acquisition of Academic Earth, we will be able to provide even more robust resource to students on the web, from casual learners to those seeking formal degree and certification programs.” Ampush Media plans to invest heavily in building out social and interactive user features and adding new lecture material to the site.

Founded in 2008 by Richard Ludlow, Chris Bruner, and Liam Pisano – and backed by an angel investor group including Yale professors, Honest Tea founder Barry Nalebuff, and Pulitzer prize winner Daniel Yergin – Academic Earth provides a growing offering of over 350 free online video courses, encompassing over 5,000 lectures, from leading universities such as Harvard, Stanford, Yale, and MIT. The site currently attracts users from all 50 states, more than 200 countries, and seven continents, and has over 400,000 unique visitors per month.  

Richard Ludlow, Co-Founder, Academic Earth, wrote in a letter to users posted on the homepage of the site, “Four years ago, I founded the company with the goal of connecting people with high quality learning opportunities from world-class educators.”

The acquisition comes as Ampush Media looks to grow its presence in online media and technology. “Academic Earth has established a stellar reputation in online higher education, reaching a large and diverse student audience through its rich content offering,” said Ampush Media Co-Founder, Chris Amos. “We are committed to investing significant resources in the platform, and are excited to establish deeper ties with university partners.”