Rockaway Capital has added Experience Education, a UK-based specialist platform for educational travel, to its portfolio. The acquisition strengthens Rockaway’s presence in Western European markets and marks its entry into a new segment at the intersection of education and travel. The company will become one of the pillars of the private equity portfolio of Rockaway Fund.
Experience Education is one of the largest organisers of school trips in the UK. Each year it works with around 1,400 schools and takes almost 100,000 pupils and students on educational trips at home and abroad. Rockaway is buying the company from Travelopia, a specialist travel group owned by funds managed by the global investment firm KKR. Rockaway will acquire a 100% stake in the business, whose revenues amount to almost CZK 2.5 billion.
The acquisition is a further step in Rockaway’s drive to strengthen its presence in international markets. It builds on the group’s history of successfully growing several investments in Western Europe, such as Invia Group in the German-speaking countries.
“Experience Education represents an important step in Rockaway’s continued European expansion. We have repeatedly shown that we can not only acquire quality companies, but also develop them over the long term, scale them and take them into new markets. We want to build on this track record and experience as we now enter the British market,” says Jakub Havrlant, founder and CEO of Rockaway Capital.
Investing in experiential education
The British group brings together six established brands – Travelbound, SkiBound, Edwin Doran, Masterclass, World Challenge and JCA – and is the only operator in the UK market active across all major segments of school travel. Rockaway intends to build on the results achieved by the current management team led by Chief Executive John Upton.
“Experience Education is the leader of the UK market. Within the large KKR group, it did not receive the attention it deserved, which we see as a huge opportunity. This market segment is still highly fragmented, and our plan is to make Experience Education the foundation of a leading European educational travel group, growing both organically and through acquisitions, not only in the UK but also across continental Europe,” says Robert Chmelař, Managing Partner of the private equity fund Rockaway Alpha.
“For more than 50 years, our brands have been giving young people experiences they carry with them for the rest of their lives. Rockaway shares our belief in the importance of learning outside the classroom. It brings a long-term approach, capital and travel industry experience that will help us reach more schools, invest in our people and products, and grow through acquisitions,” adds John Upton, Chief Executive of Experience Education.
The acquisition also fits into Rockaway’s broader strategy of expanding beyond Central Europe. The group plans to enter new countries primarily through strong local assets, around which it can gradually build further business and a local base.
A proven model from Euromedia Group
In consolidating the fragmented educational travel market, Rockaway can draw on its experience with Euromedia Group, part of the portfolio of the private equity fund Rockaway Alpha. After investing in the company in 2017, Rockaway gradually expanded the group with additional publishing brands, distribution activities and the Luxor bookshop chain, integrated the individual parts and invested in digitalisation, e-commerce and logistics. The result is a vertically integrated book group that today combines publishing, book distribution and wholesale, bricks-and-mortar retail and e-commerce, an extensive loyalty programme and digital formats. Rockaway sees a similar opportunity in Experience Education: by combining organic growth with selective add-on acquisitions, it aims to turn a strong platform into a European leader.
Rockaway also has significant experience in the travel industry specifically. In 2016, it acquired Invia for approximately CZK 2 billion and, over the following years, used add-on investments to build it into a major European player. Over almost nine years, Invia expanded into further countries and Rockaway steered it through the pandemic. At the end of 2024, Rockaway sold Invia Group to Poland’s WP Holding for almost EUR 240 million, approximately CZK 6 billion.
An opportunity for qualified investors
Last year, Rockaway underwent a fundamental transformation in the way it operates. It moved from a closed investment holding to an open fund structure and, for the first time on a larger scale, made its investment ecosystem available to external investors. It transferred all of its existing assets into the new Rockaway Fund, which brings together its main investment strategies across private equity, venture capital and blockchain.
Alongside the parent Rockaway Fund, investors can also invest in the Rockaway Alpha and Rockaway Defense funds. Rockaway has also achieved significant successes outside private equity. Through Rockaway Ventures, it has invested in fast-growing European AI start-ups such as BottleCap AI and Wonderful. Following its latest funding round, Wonderful reached a valuation of more than CZK 100 billion.