Advance Publications Nearing Deal to Buy Plagiarism-Scanning Company Turnitin For $1.75 Billion
March 06 2019 - 11:15AM
Dow Jones News
By Melissa Korn
Turnitin, the software company that allows teachers to check
whether papers submitted by students have been plagiarized, is
being bought for $1.75 billion by Advance Publications Inc., the
privately held company that owns Condé Nast and American City
Business Journals, according to a person familiar with the
matter.
Advance Publications also is a major shareholder in Charter
Communications Inc. and Discovery Inc.
Turnitin uses machine learning and artificial intelligence to
check for plagiarism in written and code assignments. The company
also automates grading for teachers by marking grammatical errors
and checking whether lines of code will work. It has reviewed the
work of more than 34 million students across 153 countries, with
about two-thirds of its customers in higher education and most of
the rest in high schools.
The deal, which awaits regulatory approvals, is expected to
close in the second quarter of 2019.
Turnitin, based in Oakland, Calif., is currently owned by an
investment group affiliated with venture-capital firm Insight
Venture Partners, Singapore sovereign-wealth fund GIC and
others.
Write to Melissa Korn at melissa.korn@wsj.com
(END) Dow Jones Newswires
March 06, 2019 11:00 ET (16:00 GMT)
Copyright (c) 2019 Dow Jones & Company, Inc.
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