4-Feb-2019, Joe Panettieri @joepanettieri wrote the following about the MSP (managed services provider) Software Market, but the same could be said about the Sales Enablement / Sales Engagement / Partner Enablement / Channel Enablement markets:
Private Equity Is (Still) Eating the MSP (managed services provider) Software Market
Private equity firms like Insight Venture Partners, Thoma Bravo & Vista Equity Partners are reshaping the MSP (managed services provider) software market. And they’re not done.
Private equity firms have acquired many (though not all) of the large MSP software providers in the SMB market. But the M&A game isn’t over. Indeed, the stakes may be about to go even higher. […] The big private equity players in the sector — particularly Insight Venture Partners, Thoma Bravo and Vista Equity Partners, among others — are plotting their next moves.
Allbound allbound.com @allbound SaaS toolset for partner training, content marketing, collaboration, & customer success. Deliver content & training. Ready reps for the entire sales cycle. Training & learning tracks to up your reps’ game. Playbooks & pins to give reps specific content or see content they’ve assembled. Customer-facing tools help partners & their reps provide ongoing value, both pre- & post-sales. Empower channel partners to have the conversations they need to have. Collaboration spaces foster mutually-beneficial, profitable communication & prevent partners from spinning their wheels. Save valuable time with an organized, transparent thread of conversation. No time lost searching for emails, no hours wasted on calls with partners half in the dark. Align knowledge across the board & enable representatives from all sides of a deal to share & discuss information in a collaborative environment, archived for everybody’s future reference. Channel / Partner Enablement.
$7.3M USD in annual revenue. Competes with Highspot, Seismic, & Brainshark. Phoenix, AZ & San Francisco, CA, USA. 26-Jul-2022: $43M Private Equity from Invictus Growth Partners Invictus Growth Management LLC
12-Nov-2020, Pipedrive acquired by Vista Equity Partners for $1.5Bn USD
1-Sep-2021, Drift acquired by Vista Equity Partners
22-Dec-2021, Salesloft acquired by Vista Equity Partners. Vista bought it “taking a majority stake” for/at $2-2.3Bn USD after Salesloft achieved $100M annual revenue.
4-Sep-2018, Khoros was acquired by Vista Equity Partners
4-Sep-2018, Lithium Technologies, LLC / Lithium Technologies acquired by Khoros
29-Aug-2017, Jive Software acquired by Lithium Technologies
12-Jun-2017, Jive Software acquired by Aurea Software for $462M USD
30-Jun-2015, Aurea Software acquired by Aurea Software
5-Oct-2021, Nintex acquired by TPG
19-Aug-2021, Sentinel Capital Partners, private equity firm that invests in lower mid-market companies, announced the sale of Corporate Visions Inc., the sales & marketing enablement company in the U.S., to The Riverside Company. The terms were not disclosed.
Invictus Growth Partners Invictus Growth Management LLC
- Allbound allbound.com @allbound SaaS toolset for partner training, content marketing, collaboration, & customer success. Channel / Partner Enablement. $7.3M USD in annual revenue. Competes with Highspot, Seismic, & Brainshark. Phoenix, AZ & San Francisco, CA, USA. 26-Jul-2022: $43M Private Equity from Invictus Growth Partners Invictus Growth Management LLC
Vista Equity Partners @Vista_Equity
- Khoros
- Lithium Technologies, LLC / Lithium Technologies
- Jive Software
- Lithium Technologies, LLC / Lithium Technologies
- ACQUIA INC acquia.com
- Widen Enterprises, Inc. widen.com
- SalesLoft salesloft.com
- Costello
- Noteninja
- Drift drift.com
- Pipedrive pipedrive.com Pipedrive Sales Docs
- Mailigen
Feb. 16, 2023 Demandbase, […] announced $175 million in financing from Vista Credit Partners, a subsidiary of Vista Equity Partners and strategic credit and financing partner focused on the enterprise software, data, and technology markets.
NICE nice.com @NICELtd NICE Ltd / NICE Systems Ltd.
- ContentEngine
- MindTouch
mindtouch.com@MindTouch website redirects now
Accel-KKR INVESTMENT FIRM
technology-focused private equity firm specialized in growth & middle-market investments
- Wistia wistia.com @wistia video hosting built for business. Share internal or private videos: Selectively set permissions so you can securely share internal videos & collaborate with your team. Collect feedback on your videos: Share videos & analytics with the rest of your team (or clients), & collect their feedback with time-coded comments. Cambridge, MA, USA
- FastSpring. 18-Feb-2018, Accel-KKR acquired FastSpring for an undisclosed amount.
- SalesRight. 19-Nov-2020, SalesRight acquired by FastSpring.
Axway axway.com
- Atos
- Unify unify.com Circuit by Unify will be sunset Dec-2022
- bluekiwi.io bluekiwi-software.com acquired by Atos
Private Equity Firm HGGC, LLC
14-Jul-2022, Private Equity Firm HGGC, LLC hggc.com $115M strategic equity investment in the form of a new class of convertible preferred stock issued at a premium to Upland’s current market price. Provides incremental capital intended to capture the attractive M&A opportunity set that is expected to emerge as a result of the current macroeconomic environment. It also brings additional strategic & operational support as HGGC and Upland work together to strengthen the company’s go-to-market capability to fully leverage the value of its enterprise customer base and strong product portfolio.
Upland publicly traded as $UPLD
- Altify
- Kapost
- RO|innovation
- Qvidian
- (Sant & Kadient)
- BlueVenn
- Objectif Lune Inc. objectiflune.com
- BA-Insight Inc.
bainsight.com
ESW Capital Group
Aurea, Inc.
- Jive Software
- XANT, Inc. XANT.ai [now once again insidesales.com] PLAYBOOKS
EQT (EQT Partners AB) eqtgroup.com
Private equity firm that invests in companies & regions where there is an industrial approach. Stockholm, Stockholms Lan, Sweden
Sitecore was acquired by EQT (EQT Partners AB) for $1.1bn, 1-Apr-2016. This deal was done in Cash & Stock.
- Sitecore
- Boxever
- STYLELABS
- Moosend
Ziff Davis, Inc was J2 Global, Inc
- Landslide Technologies Inc
- CampaignerCRM / Campaigner campaigner.com @CampaignerEmail
Insight Partners
Optimizely rebranded Episerver Inc
optimizely.com acquired Insite
- Insite Software
- Storyworks Ondemand/Storyworks1
INVESTMENT FIRM Stage Fund
- Ontuitive
ontuitive.com@Ontuitive @Ontuitive_UK25-Oct-2017, Stage Fund acquired Ontuitive for an undisclosed amount. Then the domain redirected to zeal.technology for a while.
TA Associates
Global growth private equity firm raised $47.5bn in capital since its founding in 1968 and is committing to new investments at the pace of over $3bn per year
Revalize revalizesoftware.com @revalize 29-Jun-2021, BOSTON, MA and JACKSONVILLE, FL – TA Associates, a global growth private equity firm with more than four decades of experience investing in enterprise software, has formed a new cloud-based platform called Revalize.
- Sofon Solutions sofon.com @SofonSoftware @SofonDE Sofon Guided Solutions. 5-Oct-2021, Revalize acquired Sofon for an undisclosed amount.
Thoma Bravo private equity firm @thomabravo
- instructure.com @Instructure
- Bridge @GetBridge getbridge.com
- Apttus apttus.com using the conga.com brand
TPG
private investment firm that manages capital across a family of funds
- Nintex nintex.com enables enterprise IT professionals to more easily create & manage simple to sophisticated business processes. 5-Oct-2021, Nintex was acquired by TPG.
- Drawloop Technologies
- K2
Permira
permira.com Global investment firm that backs successful businesses with growth ambitions. London, England, United Kingdom. Private Equity; Firm Late Stage Venture
29-Sep-2020, Seismic raised $92m in Series F funding led by the Permira funds.
Nu:Pitch became Seismic.
- SAVO / SAVO Group
savogroup.com- KnowledgeTree
- Zensight
- Percolate
- Grapevine6 grapevine6.com
- Lessonly
Sumeru Equity Partners
Private equity firm that invests in middle-market companies across software, hardware, & technology.
15-Jul-2020, SocialChorus acquired by Sumeru Equity Partners for $100M USD:
Firstup, Inc. firstup.io @Firstup_io former SocialChorus socialchorus.com @socialchorus develops employee communication & engagement platform intended to transform workers & organizations connect. Use-cases/sales-enablement/ Keep Your Field Sales Teams Better Informed: Distributed sales teams need frequent, rapid communications from their sales managers to stay ahead of the competition. Additionally, they need regularly updated sales enablement materials to effectively reach their prospects. $16M in estimated revenue annually & competes with Phobio, Dynamic Signal, & GuideSpark. San Francisco, California, United States. 
14-Sep-2021, SocialChorus & Dynamic Signal, two SaaS companies in the digital employee experience (DEX) market combined to create Firstup, a new company built to reimagine employee connection through transformative workforce communications. Firstup reflects a vision for the future of the modern workforce, in which forward-looking, employee-first companies can reach, connect, & engage every worker, everywhere.
Sentinel Capital Partners
19-Aug-2021, Sentinel Capital Partners, a private equity firm that invests in lower mid-market companies, announced the sale of Corporate Visions Inc., the sales & marketing enablement company in the U.S., to The Riverside Company.
Also see my database of 777 line items
| Private Equity ($43M) from Invictus Growth Partners Invictus Growth Management LLC (26-Jul-2022): Allbound allbound.com @allbound |
| EQT (EQT Partners AB): Sitecore (Boxever, STYLELABS, Moosend) |
| Adobe Experience Cloud / AEM / Marketo / ToutApp / Workfront |
| Cincom Systems cincom.com TeamSync CPQ Sync |
| Canva canva.com Magic Write / Magic Design. Record & download “talking presentations”. Edit video |
| SAP (Callidus, iCentera, Litmos LMS, Emarsys, Signavio) CRM, CPQ, CLM |
| Alphabet: Google Bard (AI) / Google Cloud Platform (G Suite / Drive / Docs / Sheets / Slides / Keep / Forms / Sites / Currents/Spaces) |
| Meta (Metaverse, Oculus / Reality Labs, Workplace by Facebook, Facebook, WhatsApp, Instagram, etc) |
| Sprinklr Inc. also known as Demand Media, Inc. Sprinklr Modern Marketing; CMS |
| Asana for Marketing, Asana Operations & Asana for Sales & Account Management |
| Permira permira.com: Nu:Pitch became Seismic: Seismic (SAVO / SAVO Group, KnowledgeTree, Zensight, Percolate, Grapevine6, Lessonly [Obie acquired by Lessonly 29-Jul-2021]) |
| ZoomInfo Technologies (Predecessor DiscoverOrg) TellWise, Clickagy AI, Komiko, Chorus.ai, EverString |
| ServiceNow, Inc. (Attivio, Loom Systems, Passage AI, Sweagle, Montrêal-based Element AI) |
| Dropbox building a metaverse. Dropbox Paper, Dropbox for Business (HelloSign, DocSend docsend.com) |
| Salesforce CRM CMS / Sites / Content / Chatter / Quip / Einstein / AppExchange / Trailhead / Slack / LevelJump formerly Lurniture |
| Microsoft Office / Teams / SharePoint / Dynamics / Azure / Delve / Xbox / Mesh / Loop / Yammer / Skype / LinkedIn (PointDrive) LinkedIn Learning |
| Atlassian Corporation Plc: Confluence Cloud, Trello, etc (doctape.com tape.io @doctapers / Percept.AI former Buddy AI) |
| NICE nice.com @NICELtd NICE Ltd / NICE Systems Ltd. (ContentEngine / MindTouch @MindTouch) |
| Axway axway.com (Atos [Unify unify.com Circuit by Unify will be sunset Dec-2022] bluekiwi.io bluekiwi-software.com acquired by Atos) |
| Private Equity Firm HGGC, LLC invested in Upland: Altify, Kapost, RO|innovation, Qvidian (Sant & Kadient), BlueVenn, Objectif Lune Inc. objectiflune.com, BA-Insight Inc. |
| Ziff Davis, Inc was J2 Global, Inc (Landslide Technologies Inc / CampaignerCRM / Campaigner campaigner.com @CampaignerEmail) |
| ESW Capital Group: Aurea, Inc. (Jive Software / XANT, Inc. XANT.ai [now once again insidesales.com] PLAYBOOKS) |
| Insight Partners: Optimizely rebranded Episerver Inc [Insite Software acquired Storyworks Ondemand/Storyworks1 optimizely.com acquired Insite]) |
| TA Associates: Revalize revalizesoftware.com @revalize acquired Sofon Solutions sofon.com @SofonSoftware @SofonDE Sofon Guided Solutions |
| Thoma Bravo private equity firm: Bridge @GetBridge getbridge.com by instructure.com @Instructure / Conga conga.com (Octiv [formerly TinderBox]) acquired by Apttus apttus.com |
| Vista Equity Partners: ACQUIA INC acquia.com (Widen Enterprises, Inc. widen.com), SalesLoft (Costello, Noteninja), Drift drift.com (@GiantOtterTech AI), Pipedrive pipedrive.com (Mailigen) Sales Docs, Khoros (Lithium Technologies, LLC / Lithium Technologies [Jive Software]). Demandbase got a $175M financing from Vista Credit Partners, a subsidiary of Vista Equity Partners |
| TPG private investment firm: Nintex (Drawloop Technologies / K2) |
| opentext.com acquired Documentum / Dell EMC’s Enterprise Content Division. The product originally called Livelink became an OpenText flagship product |
| Showpad (LearnCore, LIA, Voicefox, Hickup, Taptera) |
| Highspot (acquired Nova AI on 21-Sep-2022 for an undisclosed amount) |
| Dialpad dialpad.com @Dialpad acquired TalkIQ @Talk_iq |
| Gong.io (Vayo, ONDiGO) |
| 6sense.com @6senseInc 6sense Insights, Inc. acquired Slintel slintel.com @Slintel_Inc |
| Demand Science: PureB2B, Klarity, Internal Results, Leadiro [B2B sales enablement, sales intelligence & data enrichment platform], Tidings, BIOMES, airborne app |
| Coveo coveo.com (Qubit. qubit.com) |
| Sumeru Equity Partners: Former SocialChorus socialchorus.com SocialChorus & Dynamic Signal combined to create Firstup firstup.io @Firstup_io |
| SQN Investors hold 13.6% of the AI-powered software provider @Bigtincan: Bigtincan bigtincan.com [Contondo, FatStax, Zunos, Veelo (mobilepaks), Asdeq Labs, XINN, Agnitio, Clearslide (SlideRocket), VoiceVibes, Vidinoti, Brainshark, StorySlab storyslab.com, Task Exchange |
B2B Sales Enablement and Sales Tech SaaS 
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