Francisco Partners Management, L.P. , doing business as Francisco Partners , is an American private equity firm focused exclusively on investments in technology and technology-enabled services businesses. It was founded in August 1999 and based in San Francisco with offices in London and New York City .
27-614: In June 2022, Francisco Partners were ranked 20th in Private Equity International ' s PEI 300 ranking of the largest private equity firms in the world. Francisco Partners was founded in August 1999, in Menlo Park, California , during the emergence of dedicated technology buyout firms. Founders Sanford Robertson, Dipanjan Deb, David Stanton, Benjamin Ball, and Neil Garfinkel came from
54-659: A Canadian public company that was combined with Procera, for $ 444 million. Francisco Partners was named Private Equity Firm of the Year by Mergers & Acquisitions in 2017. The firm's fifth fund, Francisco Partners V, was formed at the end of 2017 with approximately $ 4 billion of committed capital. The year after Francisco Partners V's launch, the firm acquired Bomgar Corporation, Renaissance Learning , and LegalZoom . In June 2018, Francisco Partners purchased VeriFone for $ 3.4 billion. Also in 2018, Blackstone Inc. 's Strategic Capital Group and Goldman Sachs ' Petershill program acquired
81-466: A Prosper director. Also in 2014, Francisco Partners invested in the information technology company CoverMyMeds , and paid $ 120 million for a majority stake, in the controversial spy company NSO Group , sold in 2019. The firm completed raising about $ 2.9 billion for its fourth fund in 2015. That year, the firm also purchased the California-based analytics company Procera Networks for $ 240 million and
108-569: A majority or controlling stake in its portfolio companies, but will occasionally acquire a minority interest in a company with board representation. Specializing in technology buyouts, Francisco has acquired former venture capital -backed companies, as well as many divisions of large conglomerates and IT companies worldwide. The firm is based in San Francisco, California , with additional offices including one in London , United Kingdom. Francisco Partners
135-538: A minority stake in Francisco Partners. On September 30, 2019, Francisco Partners announced its intent to acquire Orchard Software Corporation, a privately-owned company specializing in medical laboratory software. In 2020, Francisco Partners joined Diligent Corporation 's Modern Leadership Initiative and pledged to create five new board roles among its portfolio companies for gender or ethnically diverse candidates. On October 26, 2020, Francisco Partners announced
162-498: A new product by AutomatedQA, was released in June 2008. AutomatedQA had received an SD Times 100 award three times, including the most recent SD Times 100 list for 2008. The SD Times 100 award honors the top 100 leaders and innovators in the software development industry as judged by SD Times magazine. AutomatedQA remained an independent subsidiary of SmartBear from 2007 to 2010 until being merged into SmartBear Software. SmartBear
189-483: A private equity affiliate of Elliott Management. In September 2020, Francisco Partners investment GoodRx went public on the Nasdaq , with a market cap of about $ 19.4 billion. On January 11, 2021, Francisco Partners completed acquisition of Forcepoint. In March 2021, the firm entered into a partnership with Zenefits that gave them full control of the company. Also in early 2021, Francisco Partners acquired MyHeritage for
216-592: A reported $ 1 billion. Also in 2022, Francisco Partners announced the acquisition of bswift from CVS Health . bswift is a provider of software and services for benefits and human resources administration. In May 2023, Francisco Partners completed the acquisition of Sumo Logic for $ 1.7 billion. In July 2023, together with TPG Inc. , Francisco Partners agreed to acquire web tracking and analytics firm New Relic in an all-cash deal valued at $ 6.5 billion. In August 2023, IBM agreed to sell The Weather Company to Francisco Partners for an undisclosed sum. The sale
243-698: A reported $ 600 million. In May 2021, Francisco Partners and TPG Capital agreed to acquire cloud-based integration business Boomi from Dell for $ 4 billion. In July 2021 Francisco Partners acquired STARLIMS from Abbott Informatics . They also completed an acquisition for the EHR vendor OfficeAlly in December 2021. On January 21, 2022, Francisco Partners acquired health data assets from IBM 's Watson Health unit. These assets included Health Insights, MarketScan, Clinical Development, Social Program Management, Micromedex, and imaging software offerings. The assets were valued at
270-573: A unit of the General Electric Company handling sales operations for about 30,000 multinational companies. The firm purchased NPTest in 2003, the semiconductor -testing unit of Schlumberger , and by the following year Francisco Partners had more than 30 active portfolio companies. Francisco Partners purchased Smart Modular from the Solectron Corporation in 2004, with Smart Modular going public two years later. From 2005 until 2010
297-467: A variety of private equity firms. Robertson had been the founder of the technology-focused investment bank Robertson Stephens , while Deb left TPG Capital in August 1999, in order to help found the firm. Among its notable early investments, in 2000 the firm paid $ 375 million in cash to purchase 90% of Advanced Micro Devices ' communications products division. Francisco Partners then raised $ 800 million in 2002 to purchase 90% of Global eXchange Services ,
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#1732851247138324-590: Is a stub . You can help Misplaced Pages by expanding it . SmartBear Software SmartBear Software is an American privately-held information technology company that delivers tools for application performance monitoring (APM), software development , software testing , API testing and API management. The company is based in Assembly Square in Somerville in the Greater Boston Area . The company
351-450: Is currently led by CEO Dipanjan Deb, one of the firm's founders, along with Ezra Perlman and Deep Shah, co-presidents, and David Golob, the chief investment officer . Top-ranked in 2020 among tech specialist private equity firms, Francisco Partners has a list of portfolio companies that changes frequently. Francisco Partners has invested in or acquired companies including GoodRx , BeyondTrust , Renaissance Learning , and MyHeritage . In
378-903: Is known for its annual ranking of the industry's largest private equity groups, the PEI 300, which measures firms by capital raised ("dry powder" in industry terms) over a 5-year period. The first PEI ranking of private equity groups was published in 2007. Private Equity International is published by London-headquartered PEI Group, which connects alternative investment practitioners with value-added information and analysis via its 16 different publications, and with each other via marquee industry events. It has offices in London, New York, Hong Kong, Tokyo, Sydney and Los Angeles. Private Equity International 's sister publications/sites include Venture Capital Journal , Buyouts magazine and PE Hub . This bank, insurance, or other financial services corporation article
405-572: The Israeli workplace management company ClickSoftware Technologies for $ 438 million. The firm invested in GoodRx in 2015 as well. Francisco joined with Elliott Management in June 2016 to buy the SonicWall , as well as Quest Software , subsidiaries from Dell as part of the spinoff of Dell Software . The SonicWall investment attracted some controversy in the press, as Francisco Partners had also invested in
432-422: The acquisition of Forcepoint , a cybersecurity company formerly owned by Raytheon Technologies . Shortly thereafter, the firm bought MyFitnessPal from Under Armour for $ 345 million. The acquisition completed on December 1, 2020. On August 31, 2020, the deal closed for Francisco Partners to buy LogMeIn , most known for LastPass password manager , for $ 4.3 billion together with Evergreen Coast Capital Corp.,
459-518: The company acquired the software company Ichor from American Industrial Partners, as well as Plex Systems , and Kewill. The firm invested in Paymetric in 2013, selling the company to Vantiv in Atlanta, Georgia four years later. After acquiring the e-commerce services company Avangate in 2013, in 2014 the firm invested in the software company Prosper , with Francisco Partners' executive David Golob becoming
486-500: The company as head of products for Swagger and the commercial version of Swagger, SwaggerHub. In 2016, SmartBear acquired CrossBrowserTesting.com (CBT) and Ken Hamric, founder of CBT, joined the company as general manager of CrossBrowserTesting.com. In 2017, Francisco Partners acquired a majority stake in SmartBear Software. AutomatedQA Corporation specialized in automated software testing tools and developer tools. It
513-539: The competitor WatchGuard, going against norms in the private equity industry. Also in 2016, the firm sold Aesynt to Omnicell for $ 275 million and took Ichor Holdings public with an initial public offering . In late 2016, Francisco Partners launched its Agility fund, raising approximately $ 600 million of committed capital to focus on smaller technology deals. Shortly afterwards, Francisco Partners invested in Dynamo Software, Pet Circle , Discovery Education , and myON,
540-590: The firm owned the software company RedPrairie . In 2006 the company led a leveraged buyout of Metrologic Instruments , which makes laser and holographic -based scanners, and also purchased WatchGuard . The firm purchased API Healthcare in 2008, and by 2010 Francisco Partners' other healthcare holdings included AdvancedMD, Healthland, QuadraMed, and T-System. By 2012, the Francisco Partners' funds had about $ 7 billion in capital and invested "exclusively in technology companies across sectors including semiconductors , capital equipment and electronics components." That year
567-433: The latter of which was sold in 2018. Additional investments in 2016 and 2017 included companies such as SmartBear Software , iconectiv , and others. In 2017, Francisco Partners sold CoverMyMeds to McKesson Corporation , and Paymetric to Vantiv , and also sold PayLease and Corsair Gaming . Francisco Partners bought, and subsequently sold, James Allen.com in 2017. In June 2017, Francisco Partners also acquired Sandvine ,
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#1732851247138594-477: The past, Francisco Partners has held, among others, investments or ownership of ClickSoftware Technologies , Comodo Group , and Connecture. Private Equity International Private Equity International ( PEI ) is a global insight, analysis and data provider for the private equity industry, with a core focus on the relationship between investors and fund managers: the LP- GP nexus. Launched in December 2001,
621-495: The rebranding, the company acquired Eviware in 2011, leading to API promoter and SoapUI 's founder, Ole Lensmar, joining the company. He later served as chief technology officer (CTO) of SmartBear. That same year, the company acquired APM vendor AlertSite. In 2013 SmartBear acquired Spanish APM vendor Lucierna. SmartBear then acquired the Open-Source Community Swagger in 2015 and its founder, Tony Tam, joined
648-521: The title's website and printed magazines cover the people, funds, capital providers and financial trends shaping the private equity industry with an integrated team of specialist journalists and researchers in London, Hong Kong and New York. As demand for private equity in institutional portfolios continues to grow around the world, PEI aims to deliver private equity-focused professionals a comprehensive offering of proprietary data, authoritative analysis and context around industry issues and best practice. It
675-458: Was finalized on February 1, 2024. Francisco Partners specializes in financing divisional buyouts, take privates of public companies, sponsored mergers and acquisitions , growth equity financing, recapitalizations, and restructurings. The firm primarily invests in maturing or mature technology and technology-related companies in areas such as software, internet, healthcare, communications, hardware, and technology services. The firm typically acquires
702-562: Was founded in 1999 in Las Vegas , Nevada . The company's first product was AQtime , a binary instrumentation profiler to help optimize performance for applications developed with Microsoft and Borland compilers. It was released on November 12, 1999. The first version of TestComplete, AutomatedQA's automated software testing tool , was released in December 2000. In 2004, AutomatedQA released Automated Build Studio, an automated build management and continuous integration application. AQtrace,
729-417: Was founded in 2009 when SmartBear, AutomatedQA and Pragmatic Software were acquired by Insight Venture Partners. The original Smart Bear company was founded by Jason Cohen in 2003. Insight Venture Partners acquired three companies, Smart Bear, AutomatedQA and Pragmatic Software, between 2007 and early 2009. These companies operated as AQA Holdings until being rebranded as SmartBear Software in 2010. After
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