Sidley represented private equity firm Achieve Partners on its acquisition of global music publisher Wise Music Group’s Digital Education division. In addition to MusicFirst, which acts as a central hub for K-12 music education software and hardware, the acquisition includes Rising Software, known for its music theory and ear-training tools Auralia and Musition; Charanga, the UK’s largest music education platform serving elementary schools; and the software platforms Focus on Sound and O-Generator. Achieve Partners aims to employ its unique expertise in education technology to accelerate the development of all five brands, expanding their reach in ways that advance the role of technology in education while also prioritizing the unique needs of the music education community.
The Sidley team was led by Investment Funds and M&A partner Alyssa Grikscheit and Private Equity partner Adam Runcorn. The team included Matt Naifeh, Joshua Rim, Daria Jepps, Stanley Amoah, and trainee solicitors Megan Cox and Joseph Camano (M&A and Private Equity); Greg Marrs, P.C. Wang, and Madeline Clasen (Employee Benefits and Executive Compensation); Peter McCorkell, Eric Hoffman, Alex Down, Sara Salmonson, Jennifer Hargraves, and law clerk Neave O’Sullivan (Labor and Employment); Kyle Barnett and Natalie Crawford (Intellectual Property); Ash Nagdev and Sasha Hondagneu-Messner (Privacy and Cybersecurity); and Christian Brause, Jason Menzies, Eric Grosshandler, Tyler Combest, and Ryan Power (Tax).
