Kahoot Raises $215 Million From SoftBank

By Amit Chowdhry ● Oct 14, 2020
  • Kahoot! AS has announced it has completed a private placement to a subsidiary of SoftBank Group, raising approximately $215 million

Kahoot! AS has announced it has completed a private placement to a subsidiary of SoftBank Group, raising approximately $215 million. And Kahoot! AS is pleased to announce that it has completed a private placement to a subsidiary of SoftBank Group Corp through issuance of 43,000,000 new shares at a price of NOK 46 per share, raising NOK 1,978 million in gross proceeds to the company.

This private placement was resolved by the company’s Board of Directors on October 13, 2020 pursuant to the authorization granted to the Board by the general meeting of the Company on September 28, 2020.

Kahoot! has experienced strong momentum and it accelerated adoption as enterprises increasingly seek engaging, trustworthy, and user-friendly ways to build corporate culture, educate, and interact. And at the same time, schools and educators are looking to enhance the learning experience whether virtually or in the classroom.

With the need proceeds, the company intends to finance accelerated growth through value-creating non-organic opportunities and continue to build a unique platform company.

The board has — when making its resolution to complete the Private Placement — emphasized that SoftBank will strengthen the company’s shareholder base as an investor with deep expertise and experience owning and developing software companies. And the private placement involves limited financial dilution to existing shareholders — which the board considers as justifiable when taking into account the expected contribution of the private placement to the long-term success of the company. The board is of the view that the private placement is in the common interest of the company and its shareholders.

The payment for the new shares shall be made on October 14, 2020 and the new shares will be issued as soon as the share capital increase in the company pertaining to the issuance of the new shares has been registered in the Norwegian Registry of Business Enterprises.

Following registration of the capital increase pertaining to the private placement, the company’s share capital will be NOK 44,360,522.60 divided into 443,605,226 shares — each with a nominal value of NOK 0.10. And SoftBank will own 43,000,000 shares representing 9.69% of the total number of shares in issue.

SoftBank also entered into an agreement with the company pursuant to which it has undertaken for a period of 6 months from completion of the private placement not to increase its ownership interest in the company to 10% or more of the total number of shares in Kahoot. Kahoot may waive SoftBank’s obligations under the stand-still agreement at any time.

ABG Sundal Collier ASA, Arctic Securities AS, and Goldman Sachs International are placement agents to Kahoot! and Advokatfirmaet Thommessen AS is legal counsel to Kahoot! in connection with the private placement.