Hellman & Friedman pays $1.1 billion for Renaissance Learning

Renaissance, founded in 1984 in Wisconsin, provides assessment methods such as electronic tests that adapt questions in real time depending on how successfully the student is answering.

Geared toward education from kindergarten through high school, Renaissance also provides an outline of skills that students should master with digital teaching tools to help them.

Renaissance is benefiting from a renewed sense of urgency by schools to ramp up their technology investments as they race to implement the ”common core” standards, the national math and language criteria set to go into effect next year.

Google Capital, the late-stage investment arm of Google Inc, announced a $40 million investment in Renaissance in February. The investment valued Renaissance at $1 billion. Google has a longstanding interest in education, including building learning apps as part of its Google Play for Education initiative.

The investment by H&F includes the Google Capital stake, but the companies are discussing a potential investment by Google in the H&F-owned entity. The companies are also discussing continued collaboration between Google Play and Renaissance.

H&F will take on new debt to complete financing of the deal.

Sarah McBride is a journalist for Reuters in San Francisco.