News
Ampush Media Acquires Academic Earth, A Premium Global Online Education Content Portal
San Francisco, California (January 10, 2012) – Ampush Media, a technology-driven online marketing start-up, today announced the acquisition of Academic Earth, the online education site TechCrunch hailed as the “Hulu for Education” and Bill Gates believes could revolutionize the education industry.
Ampush Media, creators of a technology platform that helps students identify higher education options that fit their interests, will expand Academic Earth’s mission to help learners find and explore premium educational content online. The San Francisco-based company plans to invest heavily in building out social and interactive user features and adding new lecture material to the site. With these additions, Ampush Media expects to provide an even more robust resource to a diverse student population on the web, from casual learners to those seeking formal degree and certification programs.
Academic Earth serves as a curated repository of premium OpenCourseWare content, currently serving over 350 free online video courses, encompassing over 5,000 lectures, from leading universities such as Harvard, Stanford, Yale, and MIT. Since being founded in 2008, the site has grown to attract over 400,000 unique visitors per month, primarily through word of mouth.
“Four years ago, I founded Academic Earth with the goal of connecting people with high quality learning opportunities from world-class educators,” wrote Academic Earth founder, Richard Ludlow, in a letter to users posted on the site’s homepage. “With today's announcement, Academic Earth is in a better position than ever to fulfill its mission, dramatically expanding educational access to meet the needs of learners across the globe.”
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.”
About Academic Earth
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.
About Ampush Media
Founded in 2009 by Chris Amos, Jesse Pujji, and Nick Shah – three former Wall Street professionals and graduates of the University of Pennsylvania – Ampush Media 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. The 30-person bootstrapped start-up is growing profitably without the need for outside funding. Ampush Media is based in San Francisco and has offices in New York and San Diego.
Ampush media named best new lead generation partner
SAN FRANCISCO, Calif. – January 11, 2011 - Ampush Media, a disruptive education marketing startup, has garnered the inaugural LEADER award as Best New Lead Generation Partner in the Higher Education industry category. Ampush, founded in 2009, only started delivering leads in early 2010 but has been quickly recognized by clients as their best new vendor.
The Best New Partner award was voted on solely by colleges and universities that buy online leads. This showcases the industry’s recognition of the company’s focus on new ideas, optimization and client service.
“From the beginning, we set out to improve our industry by focusing on technology, integrity and fresh ideas,” said Nick Shah, Chief Executive Officer, Ampush Media. “While we still have plenty of room for improvement, this award is validation that we’re headed in the right direction. Next Year, we want to win for best quality and conversion.”
In the past year, Ampush has added more than 75 new universities to its client roster. On average, clients have increased marketing dollars spent with Ampush by 30 percent per month.
Ampush’s agency-like approach embraces transparency, a data-driven methodology and continued, real-time optimization. The company uses proprietary processes and algorithms to drive unique student inquiries to their university clients. This leads to better inquiries, more enrollments and successful students who go on to graduate.
“One of the greatest challenges facing admissions teams is determining which new third-party marketing service firms they should partner with,” said LeadsCouncil Co-Founder Dave Wengel. “According to our members, the two most commonly sought after traits for new partners are innovation and trustworthiness. Ampush Media embodies these traits and we congratulate them on winning our inaugural LEADER award for Best New Partner.”