Pluralsight Creative Division Gains Second Acquisition in Two Years; Library Now Includes More than 1,600 Creative Courses

SALT LAKE CITY – Pluralsight, the global leader in online learning for technology professionals, today announced the acquisition of Adobe-centric video training company Train Simple. With this acquisition, Pluralsight’s technology learning platform becomes a leading provider of Adobe training online, offering more than 1,200 courses covering the entire Adobe Creative Cloud suite as well as other Adobe flagship technologies. This marks Pluralsight’s second expansion into the creative training market, following the company's 2014 purchase of Digital-Tutors.

“Technology skills can become obsolete in a flash, and for enterprises and creative professionals relying on Adobe's software to produce great work, there's an imperative to stay on the cutting edge of their industry,” said Aaron Skonnard, co-founder and CEO of Pluralsight. “By bringing Train Simple under the Pluralsight umbrella, our on-demand learning platform now includes one of the richest libraries of Adobe trainings within our broader collection of more than 5,000 technology courses authored by industry luminaries.”

For 15 years, creative professionals and top companies like Disney, GE and DreamWorks have used Train Simple to learn industry-standard software like Adobe Photoshop, After Effects, InDesign, Illustrator, Premier Pro and more. This acquisition will add more than 150 new courses to Pluralsight’s Adobe library, and will provide Pluralsight users with access to new, in-depth training content to help creative professionals produce better work, speed up creative workflows and bring ideas to life.

“We are excited to bring Train Simple into the Pluralsight family. They've built their reputation on producing exceptional, Adobe-vetted content for professionals who want to master the Adobe product line, and that's exactly the type of instructors our users trust,” said Andy Rahden, VP of creative, design and engineering at Pluralsight. “Together, we'll be able to produce a powerful learning experience that will help individuals and organizations grow quickly, whether they are starting at square one or looking for a tune-up down the line."

Train Simple courses will be incorporated into Pluralsight’s subscription-based platform and be available to users effective immediately. Train Simple users can continue to access their courses through the Train Simple site or a link on the Pluralsight homepage. The Train Simple brand will be retired at the end of 2016. Additionally, Train Simple’s founder, Matthew Pizzi, has been named Pluralsight’s curriculum director for the creative, graphic arts and illustration team, where he will create dynamic coursework for professionals and businesses.

“Train Simple and Pluralsight share a vision for the future of online education,” said Train Simple founder Matthew Pizzi. “This alliance will allow us to continue to create high-quality training content for creatives and reach a larger audience thanks to Pluralsight’s cutting edge platform. Technology training is in both of our DNA.”

This acquisition is Pluralsight’s eighth acquisition in three years and comes on the heels of the company unveiling a new technology platform that offers a 360-degree approach to learning. The on-demand platform allows technology professionals to assess their current skill level, follow directed learning paths, learn through expert-authored courses, test drive new technologies via an interactive lab environment and access one-on-one mentoring to problem-solve and accelerate learning.

For more information on Pluralsight and its new Adobe Creative Cloud Suite courses, visit https://learn.pluralsight.com/creative/train-simple.