Dive Summary:

• Desire2Learn announced Knowillage as its third acquisition in nine months on Monday.
• The Canadian learning management system provider acquired the adaptive learning startup for an undisclosed amount, revealing that all six Knowillage team members will be folded into the company with the acquisition.
• Knowillage uses a semantic search engine to analyze content ranging from textbooks and Wikipedia to case studies and then mapping it against grading rubrics and student data to adjust to learning needs.

Dive Insight:

Following its $80 million round of venture funding last September, Desire2Learn acquired the Gates Foundation-backed "virtual guidance counselor" DegreeCompass and online collaboration service Wiggio. Without a doubt, the LMS platform is working to build a more robust product in comparison to competitors like BlackBoard and Moodle, and all three of these recent purchases seem like logical steps on the way there—especially given adaptive learning's current buzz word status.