As the year is closing in, it’s fair to say that 2020 has been the year of big adjustments for all of us. How and where we work, learn and socialize has changed significantly.

At Kahoot!, we are fortunate to be in a position where our products and solutions can help mitigate some of the strains posed by the ongoing pandemic. By leveraging our technology, we are able to create engagement in the classroom or at the workplace, support a richer learning experience and foster connections between children and schools, employees and their coworkers – or in a family setting.

Strong third quarter

It has been an eventful and strategically important quarter for Kahoot!, with strong progress in product development, commercial offerings, new strategic partnerships – and with strong financial delivery.

In the third quarter, we continued to add a record number of users and paid subscribers of our offerings as our users accustomed themselves to the “new normal” in the post-COVID reality. The Kahoot! platform saw continued user growth with more than 21 million active accounts in the last 12 months (45% yoy growth), 224 million hosted games (10% yoy growth) and 1.3 billion participating players (19% yoy growth) in the last 12 months.

In Q3, paid subscriptions saw strong growth reaching more than 360,000, an increase of 160% compared to the same time last year.

The Kahoot! Group reported invoiced revenue of $11.6 million for Q3 2020, compared to $3.4 million in Q3 2019, representing 241% year on year growth. Q3 was the first ever quarter that the Group delivered positive EBITDA of $1 million compared to -$1.7 million for Q3 2019.

The company had positive cash flow from operations in Q3 with 45% cash conversion from billed revenue, being the fourth consecutive quarter with positive cash flow from operations.

Earlier this month, Kahoot! completed a private placement of 43 million new shares to SoftBank, raising USD 215 million. We intend to use the net proceeds from this placement to finance accelerated growth through value-creating non-organic opportunities and continue to build a unique platform company. The Kahoot! Group now has more than 9,000 shareholders and is preparing for a main listing at the Oslo Stock Exchange in Q1 2021.

In Q4, the Kahoot! Group expects invoiced revenue to reach $14 million, a 20% quarter on quarter growth. For the full year 2020, the Kahoot! Group expects invoiced revenue to reach $41-42m, a 220% growth year on year. The number of active accounts for financial year 2020 are expected to exceed 22 million and paid subscriptions are expected to exceed 400,000.

Key initiatives in Q3 2020

On top of our strong financial results in Q3, we have broadened our product offerings and solutions with new initiatives:

Kahoot! is now available in Spanish, the first of several languages that will make Kahoot! available to an even larger global audience. In the coming months, Kahoot! will also be available on the app and web in several other languages, including Portuguese, French and more.

The Kahoot! Group has acquired Actimo, a next-level app for increased employee engagement that helps organizations efficiently communicate with, train, and lead the frontline workforce.

We announced our collaboration with Zoom, so our users will soon be able to host and play Kahoot! games and presentations without ever leaving their Zoom meetings.

For the recent Back to School season we offered Kahoot! EDU, a scalable offering that helps admins and school leaders bring an enhanced Kahoot! experience to their entire school or district. We also launched Study Leagues, a free feature within the Kahoot! app where learners can study together in an engaging and fun way, and compete and connect virtually no matter where they are.

This summer we announced the largest collaborations yet between Kahoot! and The Walt Disney Company, an enduring relationship which began in 2017. Earlier today, we launched a new Kahoot! Academy fall collection of games for Halloween and Día de los Muertos, in cooperation with Disney! This is the first collection of games to be released from the recently-announced agreement between Kahoot! and Disney.

Upcoming initiatives

Moving into the final quarter of 2020, we have considerable momentum, and several exciting upcoming launches, including:

Kahoot! will soon be introducing language learning as part of our offerings, which is a natural evolution as we grow our family of learning apps.

Before the upcoming holiday season, we will launch Kahoot! Family subscription, a combo pack offering families a set of tools and apps to learn at home. This pack will include subscription to the premium version of the Kahoot! app as well as our other learning apps, covering math,reading and chess.

For brands and publishers, we will be launching Kahoot! Publisher later this year, to help them distribute their high-quality content and reach more relevant audiences through the power and reach of the Kahoot! Platform.

We are excited about our upcoming collaboration with Bitmoji, bringing the ability to add “Bitmoji’ avatars to the Kahoot! experience for teachers and students for an even more awesome and personalized learning experience!

We are preparing for the launch of Kahoot! Academy Marketplace, for the global educator community where, not only educators but also students and individuals can access and transact with high-quality, verified content from other educators and premium publishers.

Coming soon will be our “Courses” feature for Kahoot! 360, our next-generation corporate learning platform. The blended learning solution will let corporate trainers combine instructor-led training with self-paced mobile learning to maximize engagement and allow employees to take control over their own learning.

We will continue to deliver value to our users and customers, and our strong momentum and performance in the final quarter of the year, to make learning awesome for everyone!