Houghton Mifflin Harcourt Acquires Tribal Nova, Increases In House Game Development Expertise

BOSTON – April 11, 2013 – Global education leader Houghton Mifflin Harcourt (HMH) today announced the acquisition of Tribal Nova, a Montréal based educational technology company focused on the development of digital games, products and services for preschool children.

The acquisition represents a key investment in HMH’s capabilities around the development of industry leading adaptive digital content for the
pre-K market. Tribal Nova brings significant talent and expertise in multiplatform educational game development into the HMH fold, increasing HMH’s capacity to create entertaining online games based on sound educational principles, innovative design and adaptive
functionality.

Tribal Nova is best known for the development of educational online services and apps in partnership with major media and publisher partners in North America and Europe.

The acquisition encompasses Tribal Nova’s full product portfolio, which includes iLearnWith, a cross curricular, game based, school readiness program for children aged 3-6 years; iReadWith, a complementary ebook program; as well as KidCore, a multiplatform game based learning engine which enables the development of personalized educational content based on user profile and game performance.

“The combination of Tribal Nova’s game development expertise with HMH’s proven educational content and learning design capabilities
will enable HMH to bring a more holistic and personalized gaming experience to market,” said Mary Cullinane, Chief Content Officer and EVP, Corporate Affairs at HMH. “With the acquisition of Tribal Nova, HMH has exciting growth opportunities in the consumer education market and beyond.”

“We are excited to join one of the world’s leading education companies and believe that HMH is well positioned to take Tribal Nova to new heights in high quality educational game development,” said Pierre Le Lann and Guillaume Aniorté, Co-CEOs of Tribal Nova.

“We share a belief in the importance of curiosity in fostering effective learning in children and look forward to working together to create new
and innovative products which build upon the concept of meaningful play.”

While Tribal Nova and its employees will continue to be based in Montreal, the team will become part of HMH’s US based Content and Product Innovation group, dedicated to the incubation and development of next generation content for both K 12 and consumer markets.

This is an excerpt. Click here to see the full release from Houghton Mifflin Harcourt.