
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 market:
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.
by Joe Panettieri, 4-Feb-2019:
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.

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.

NICE nice.com @NICELtd NICE Ltd / NICE Systems Ltd.
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
- 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
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.
Ziff Davis, Inc was J2 Global, Inc
Insight Partners
Optimizely rebranded Episerver Inc
optimizely.com acquired Insite
- Insite Software
- Storyworks Ondemand/Storyworks1
INVESTMENT FIRM Stage Fund
- Ontuitive
ontuitive.com @Ontuitive 25-Oct-2017, Stage Fund acquired Ontuitive for an undisclosed amount. Now the domain re-directs to zeal.technology
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
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.
Permira
29-Sep-2020, Seismic raised $92m in Series F funding led by the Permira funds.
Nu:Pitch became Seismic.
- SAVO / SAVO Group
- 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 almost 753 line items
EQT (EQT Partners AB): Sitecore (Boxever, STYLELABS, Moosend) |
Adobe Experience Cloud / AEM / Marketo / ToutApp / Workfront workfront.com @workfront @AdobeWorkfront / Figma |
Cincom Systems cincom.com TeamSync CPQ Sync |
Canva canva.com record & download “talking presentations”. Edit video |
SAP (Callidus, iCentera, Litmos LMS, Emarsys, Signavio) CRM, CPQ, CLM |
Google Cloud Platform (G Suite / Drive / Docs / Sheets / Slides / Keep / Forms / Sites) |
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 everstring.com @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. bainsight.com |
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]) |
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 |
Dialpad dialpad.com @DialpadHQ 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 airborneapp.io |
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 taskexchange.net, SalesDirector salesdirector.ai @SalesDirectorAI], not buying LiveTiles Ltd livetilesglobal.com @LiveTiles] |
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