NetDragon Acquires JumpStart to Expand Its Online Communities
NetDragon Websoft Holdings Limited, a global leader in building internet communities, is pleased to announce that it successfully acquired JumpStart, a Los Angeles based provider of educational products which specialise in creative and educational games for K-12 children.
Dr. Simon Leung, Vice Chairman and Executive Director of NetDragon said, “The acquisition of JumpStart has been completed today and I am very excited about including JumpStart as a subsidiary to the NetDragon family. It is a perfect example of NetDragon’s expertise in combining and utilising both education and gaming businesses. The excellent management team led by David Lord, CEO of JumpStart, has built very impressive and popular educational games that are extremely valuable additions to NetDragon’s product offerings. Through this acquisition, we will tap into their excellent relationship with DreamWorks and utilise their IPs to enhance our existing products. We believe this strategic acquisition will open up tremendous opportunities for both NetDragon and JumpStart to offer innovative and world-class learning products to our users.”
Founded in 1991, JumpStart has set the standard in children’s educational games by making learning fun and easy. Over the years, JumpStart has created numerous successful own-branded games such as JumpStart, Math Blaster and Neopets. Neopets in particular has recorded over 75 million registered users. Besides its flagship brands, it has also built long-standing partnerships with DreamWorks Animation, leveraging on its IPs including Madagascar and School of Dragons, to produce creative and innovative educational mobile and multiplayer online games. The School of Dragons game is based on “How to Train Your Dragon” Movies and has registered over 30 million players globally. JumpStart currently has a large audience base of over 5 million monthly active users which spans across North America, Europe, South America, Asia and Oceania, along with over 90 million registered accounts.
NetDragon has deep expertise in building online communities, especially in the areas of gaming and education. Combining its knowledge and experience in online gaming and education, and transferring such expertise in building other online communities can unlock great potential and value for the company.
“We feel privileged to become a part of an organization that has such passion about education and expertise in building business through online technologies platforms. We believe JumpStart’s existing products and related IPs complement NetDragon’s products and services extremely well. We look forward to working with such a talented and passionate team,” said David Lord.