Skillful Craftsman Education Technology Ltd. (EDTK:NASDAQ), an education technology company, announced that it has entered into an equity transfer agreement with certain shareholders of Wuxi Talent Home Information Technology Co., Ltd., a flexible staffing platform, to acquire 60% equity interest.

The transaction was unanimously approved by the company's board of directors and is expected to close by 28 February 2022.

Skillful Craftsman is agreeing to acquire the equity interest of Wuxi for a consideration consisting of RMB 15 million (USD 2.35 million) in cash and 791,667 newly issued ordinary shares of the company.

According to Skillful Craftsman, the acquisition is expected to expand the company's online business presence and vocational training business, and provide the company with a strong foothold in the regional flexible staffing market.

Founded in 2007, Wuxi Talent is described as one of the first third-party part-time service platforms with a crowdsourcing model in China and one of the largest flexible staffing platforms in Jiangsu Province.

Xiaofeng Gao, Chairman and Co-CEO of Skillful Craftsman, said, "We are excited about the continued collaboration with WTH since our strategic partnership in August 2021. The vocational education and flexible staffing markets demonstrate a continuous strong trend as the Chinese government issued a set of guidelines on promoting the high-quality development of vocational education in 2021, and the flexible staffing market in China was about RMB 648 billion (USD 101.86 billion) in 2020, and will grow at a compound annual growth rate of 25% from 2020 to 2025, according to a research report by iResearch.

“This acquisition represents another critical milestone in fuelling the company's next stage of development in the growing markets,” Gao continued. “With WTH's expertise and resource, we will have access to the flexible staffing market and expand our ability to deliver high-quality vocational education services. Talents and employers on the platform of WTH will benefit from our vocational training courses as well. The acquisition of the controlling equity interest of WTH will also provide the company with a solid foundation for our planned in-depth cooperation strategy with offline colleges and universities.”

Gao added, “We believe that we can generate significant revenue and create greater value for our shareholders through this acquisition. We look forward to working with WTH in leading the development and growth in the flexible staffing market."

Skillful Craftsman is an education technology company that provides interactive online vocational training and virtual simulation experimental training courses. The Company began operations in Wuxi, China in 2013.