Instructure Holdings Inc (NYSE:INST) shares are moving higher Monday following reports suggesting Thoma Bravo is exploring a sale of the education technology company.

What Happened: On Friday, Reuters reported that private equity firm Thoma Bravo is exploring a sale of Instructure Holdings. Thoma Bravo owns 83% of the education software provider.

Instructure Holdings shares jumped in early trading Monday and have continued to trend higher. Instructure Holdings had a market cap of $2.96 billion as of Friday's close, per Benzinga Pro.

People familiar with the matter reportedly said Thoma Bravo has tapped JP Morgan Chase & Co (NYSE:JPM) to get a feel for the level of interest of potential buyers, including buyout firms.

Instructure provides software to schools, colleges and universities, featuring its flagship learning management system Canvas. The Salt Lake City-based company has over 8,000 customers in more than 100 countries.

Thoma Bravo took Instructure private in 2020 for $2 billion. The private equity firm then returned Instructure to public markets a year later via an initial public offering at $20 per share. Instructure shares have traded relatively flat since that time, underperforming the S&P 500 by a wide margin.

Instructure reported financial results for the first quarter near the beginning of the month. The company delivered revenue growth of 20.7% on a year-over-year basis, but missed earnings estimates for the quarter. As of March 31, Instructure had $89.3 million in cash and cash equivalents and $1.173 billion in debt.

INST Price Action: Instructure shares were up 8.78% at $22.05 at the time of publication, according to Benzinga Pro.

Photo: courtesy of Instructure Holdings.