Francisco Partners is an American
private equity firm
A private equity firm is an investment management company that provides financial backing and makes investments in the private equity of startup or operating companies through a variety of loosely affiliated investment strategies including leve ...
focused exclusively on investments in technology and technology-enabled services businesses.
Founded in August 1999 and based in
San Francisco
San Francisco (; Spanish language, Spanish for "Francis of Assisi, Saint Francis"), officially the City and County of San Francisco, is the commercial, financial, and cultural center of Northern California. The city proper is the List of Ca ...
with offices in
London
London is the capital and largest city of England and the United Kingdom, with a population of just under 9 million. It stands on the River Thames in south-east England at the head of a estuary down to the North Sea, and has been a majo ...
and
New York City
New York, often called New York City or NYC, is the List of United States cities by population, most populous city in the United States. With a 2020 population of 8,804,190 distributed over , New York City is also the L ...
, Francisco Partners Management L.P. has raised approximately US$24 billion in committed capital as of June 2020 when the firm raised nearly $10 billion for tech company investments.
As of 2021, Francisco Partners had more than US$30 billion in assets under management, and invested in over 300 companies in the technology sector.
History
1999–2011
Francisco Partners was founded in August 1999,
in
Menlo Park, California
Menlo Park is a city at the eastern edge of San Mateo County within the San Francisco Bay Area of California in the United States. It is bordered by San Francisco Bay on the north and east; East Palo Alto, Palo Alto, and Stanford to the south; ...
, during the emergence of dedicated technology buyout firms.
Founders Sanford Robertson, Dipanjan Deb, David Stanton, Benjamin Ball, and Neil Garfinkel came from a variety of
private equity
In the field of finance, the term private equity (PE) refers to investment funds, usually limited partnerships (LP), which buy and restructure financially weak companies that produce goods and provide services. A private-equity fund is both a ty ...
firms. Robertson had been the founder of the technology-focused investment bank
Robertson Stephens
Robertson Stephens is a wealth management firm serving high net worth individuals and family offices. The firm is registered with the United States Securities and Exchange Commission as an investment advisor.
Robertson Stephens was founded as ...
, while Deb left
TPG Capital
TPG Inc., previously known as Texas Pacific Group and TPG Capital, is an American investment company based in Fort Worth, Texas. The private equity firm is focused on leveraged buyouts and growth capital. TPG manages investment funds in growth c ...
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
Advanced Micro Devices, Inc. (AMD) is an American multinational semiconductor company based in Santa Clara, California, that develops computer processors and related technologies for business and consumer markets. While it initially manufact ...
' communications products division. Francisco Partners then raised $800 million in 2002 to purchase 90% of Global eXchange Services
GXS (OpenText GXS) is a subsidiary of OpenText Corporation headquartered in Gaithersburg, Maryland, United States. Its GXS Trading Grid managed more than twelve billion transactions in 2011. Since 2004, GXS has invested more than $250 million in ...
, a unit of the General Electric Company
The General Electric Company (GEC) was a major British industrial conglomerate involved in consumer and defence electronics, communications, and engineering. The company was founded in 1886, was Britain's largest private employer with over 250 ...
handling sales operations for about 30,000 multinational companies.[
The firm purchased ]NPTest
Eagle Test Systems is a supplier of automatic test equipment (ATE) and operates as a business unit within the Teradyne Semiconductor Test Division. Eagle's test equipment was designed to address volume production. Customers, including semiconducto ...
in 2003, the semiconductor
A semiconductor is a material which has an electrical resistivity and conductivity, electrical conductivity value falling between that of a electrical conductor, conductor, such as copper, and an insulator (electricity), insulator, such as glas ...
-testing unit of Schlumberger
Schlumberger Limited (), doing business as SLB, is an oilfield services company. Schlumberger has four principal executive offices located in Paris, Houston, London, and The Hague.
Schlumberger is the world's largest offshore drilling compa ...
, 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 the firm owned the software company RedPrairie. In 2006 the company led a leveraged buyout of Metrologic Instruments
Metrologic Instruments is an automated identification and data capture (AIDC) company headquartered in Blackwood, New Jersey. It designs, manufactures and markets bar code decoding hardware, adaptive optical solutions and high-speed image process ...
, which makes laser and holographic
Holography is a technique that enables a wavefront to be recorded and later re-constructed. Holography is best known as a method of generating real three-dimensional images, but it also has a wide range of other applications. In principle, i ...
-based scanners, and also purchased WatchGuard. The firm purchased API Healthcare
API Healthcare is based in Hartford, Wisconsin and is a developer of healthcare-specific workforce management software. The company is best known for providing workforce management solutions to the healthcare industry.
The company has 350 employe ...
in 2008, and by 2010 Francisco Partners' other healthcare holdings included AdvancedMD, Healthland, QuadraMed, and T-System.
2012–2015
By 2012, the Francisco Partners' funds had about $7 billion in capital and invested "exclusively in technology companies across sectors including semiconductors
A semiconductor is a material which has an electrical resistivity and conductivity, electrical conductivity value falling between that of a electrical conductor, conductor, such as copper, and an insulator (electricity), insulator, such as glas ...
, capital equipment and electronics components." That year 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
Worldpay, Inc. was an American payment processing company and technology provider. In June 2019 it was acquired and merged into Fidelity National Information Services (FIS). Before its acquisition, it was headquartered in the greater Cincinnat ...
in Atlanta, Georgia
Atlanta ( ) is the capital and most populous city of the U.S. state of Georgia. It is the seat of Fulton County, the most populous county in Georgia, but its territory falls in both Fulton and DeKalb counties. With a population of 498,715 ...
four years later. After acquiring the e-commerce services company Avangate in 2013, in 2014 the firm invested in the software company Prosper {{wiktionary, prosper
Prosper may refer to:
__NOTOC__ Places in the United States
* Prosper, Minnesota, an unincorporated community
* Prosper, North Dakota, an unincorporated community
* Prosper, Oregon, an unincorporated community
* Prosper, Texa ...
, with Francisco Partners' executive David Golob becoming a Prosper director. Also in 2014, Francisco Partners invested in the information technology company CoverMyMeds
CoverMyMeds is a healthcare software company that creates software to automate the prior authorization process used by some health insurance companies in the United States. The company was founded in 2008 and has offices in Ohio. Since early 20 ...
, and paid $120 million for a majority stake, in the controversial spy company NSO Group
NSO Group Technologies (NSO standing for Niv, Shalev and Omri, the names of the company's founders) is an Israeli cyber-intelligence firm primarily known for its proprietary spyware Pegasus, which is capable of remote zero-click surveillance ...
, 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
Procera Networks is a networking equipment company based in Fremont, California, United States, that designs and sells Network Intelligence solutions based on deep packet inspection (DPI) technology. Procera sells solutions to telecom operators ...
for $240 million and the Israeli workplace management company ClickSoftware Technologies
ClickSoftware is an American technology company which offers automated mobile workforce management and service optimization solutions for enterprise and small businesses, both for mobile and in-house resources. Since 2020, it has been a subsidiary ...
for $438 million. The firm invested in GoodRx
GoodRx Holdings, Inc. is an American healthcare company that operates a telemedicine platform and a free-to-use website and mobile app that track prescription drug prices in the United States and provide free drug coupons for discounts on medic ...
in 2015 as well.
2016–2019
Francisco joined with Elliott Management in June 2016 to buy the SonicWall
SonicWall is an American cybersecurity company that sells a range of Internet appliances primarily directed at content control and network security. These include devices providing services for network firewalls, unified threat management (UTM) ...
, as well as Quest Software
Quest Software, also known as Quest, is a privately held software company headquartered in Aliso Viejo, California, United States. Quest provides cloud management, software as a service, security, workforce mobility, and backup & recovery. The c ...
, subsidiaries from Dell
Dell is an American based technology company. It develops, sells, repairs, and supports computers and related products and services. Dell is owned by its parent company, Dell Technologies.
Dell sells personal computers (PCs), servers, data ...
as part of the spinoff of Dell Software
Dell Software was a division of Dell with headquarters in Round Rock, Texas, United States. Dell Software was created merging various acquisitions (mainly Quest Software and Sonicwall) by Dell Inc., the third-largest maker of PCs and now a pri ...
. The SonicWall investment attracted some controversy in the press, as Francisco Partners had also invested in the competitor WatchGuard, going against norms in the private equity industry. Also in 2016, the firm sold Aesynt to Omnicell
Omnicell, Inc. is an American multinational healthcare technology company headquartered in Fort Worth, Texas. It manufactures automated systems for medication management in hospitals and other healthcare settings, and medication adherence p ...
for $275 million and took Ichor Holdings public with an initial public offering
An initial public offering (IPO) or stock launch is a public offering in which shares of a company are sold to institutional investors and usually also to retail (individual) investors. An IPO is typically underwritten by one or more investment ...
.[Francisco Partners to sell Aesynt for $275m]
Pitchbook, November 2, 2015 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
Pet Circle is an Australian online pet supplies company based in Sydney CBD, New South Wales, Australia, founded by Mike Frizell and James Edwards in 2011.
History
Pet Circle was founded as Paws for Life by Mike Frizell and James Edwards in 2 ...
, Discovery Education
Discovery, Inc. was an American multinational mass media factual television conglomerate based in New York City. Established in 1985, the company operated a group of factual and lifestyle television brands, such as the namesake Discovery Chann ...
, and myON, the latter of which was sold in 2018. Additional investments in 2016 and 2017 included companies such as 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 ...
, iconectiv
iconectiv is a supplier of network planning and network management services to telecommunications providers. Known as Bellcore after its establishment in the United States in 1983 as part of the break-up of the Bell System, the company's name ...
, Connecture Inc., Betterment
In real estate, betterment is the increased value of real property from causes other than investment made by the property owner. It is, therefore, usually referred to as unearned increment or windfall gain.
When, for instance, a property is rez ...
, and Sintec Media.
In 2017, Francisco Partners sold CoverMyMeds
CoverMyMeds is a healthcare software company that creates software to automate the prior authorization process used by some health insurance companies in the United States. The company was founded in 2008 and has offices in Ohio. Since early 20 ...
to McKesson, and Paymetric to Vantiv
Worldpay, Inc. was an American payment processing company and technology provider. In June 2019 it was acquired and merged into Fidelity National Information Services (FIS). Before its acquisition, it was headquartered in the greater Cincinnat ...
, and also sold PayLease and Corsair. Francisco Partners bought, and subsequently sold, James Allen.com in 2017. In June 2017, Francisco Partners also acquired Sandvine
Sandvine Incorporated is an application and network intelligence company based in Waterloo, Ontario.
Sandvine markets network policy control products that are designed to implement broad network policies, including Internet censorship, congestion ...
, 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
Mergers and acquisitions (M&A) are business transactions in which the ownership of companies, other business organizations, or their operating units are transferred to or consolidated with another company or business organization. As an aspect ...
'' 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
Renaissance Learning, Inc. (also known simply as Renaissance) is a software as a service and learning analytics company that makes cloud-based, Pre-K–12 educational software and adaptive assessments. Renaissance employs about 1,000 employees in ...
, and LegalZoom
LegalZoom.com, Inc. is an American online legal technology company that helps its customers create legal documents without necessarily having to hire a lawyer. Available documents include wills and living trusts, business formation documents, co ...
. In June 2018, Francisco Partners purchased VeriFone
Verifone is an American multinational corporation headquartered in Coral Springs, Florida. Verifone provides technology for electronic payment transactions and value-added services at the point-of-sale. Verifone sells merchant-operated, consume ...
for $3.4 billion. Also in 2018, Blackstone Inc.'s Strategic Capital Group and Goldman Sachs
Goldman Sachs () is an American multinational investment bank and financial services company. Founded in 1869, Goldman Sachs is headquartered at 200 West Street in Lower Manhattan, with regional headquarters in London, Warsaw, Bangalore, H ...
' Petershill program acquired 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.
2020
In 2020, Francisco Partners joined Diligent Corporation
Diligent Corporation, known as Diligent, is a software as a service company that enables board members of corporations, government organisations, and not-for-profit groups to share and collaborate information for board meetings. Headquartered in ...
'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 the acquisition of Forcepoint
Forcepoint, an American multinational corporation software company headquartered in Austin, Texas, that develops computer security software and data protection, cloud access security broker, firewall and cross-domain solutions.
Forcepoint ...
, a cybersecurity company formerly owned by Raytheon Technologies
Raytheon Technologies Corporation is an American multinational aerospace and defense conglomerate headquartered in Arlington, Virginia. It is one of the largest aerospace and defense manufacturers in the world by revenue and market capitaliza ...
. Shortly thereafter, the firm bought MyFitnessPal
MyFitnessPal is a smartphone app and website that tracks diet and exercise. The app uses gamification elements to encourage adherence to exercise and diet goals. To track nutrients, users can either scan the barcodes of various food items or ...
from Under Armour
Under Armour, Inc. is an American sports equipment company that manufactures footwear, sports and casual apparel. Under Armour's global headquarters are located in Baltimore, Maryland, with additional offices located in Amsterdam (European hea ...
for $345 million. The acquisition completed on December 1, 2020.
On August 31, 2020, the deal closed for Francisco Partners to buy LogMeIn
GoTo, formerly LogMeIn Inc., is a flexible-work provider of software as a service (SaaS) and cloud-based remote work tools for collaboration and IT management, with products including GoTo Connect, GoTo Resolve, Rescue, Central, and more, built ...
, most known for LastPass
LastPass is a password manager distributed in subscription form as well as a freemium model with limited functionality. The standard version of LastPass comes with a web interface, but also includes plugins for various web browsers and apps fo ...
password manager
A password manager is a computer program that allows users to store and manage their passwords for local applications and online services. In many cases software used to manage passwords allow also generate strong passwords and fill forms. Pas ...
, for $4.3 billion together with Evergreen Coast Capital Corp., a private equity affiliate of Elliott Management. In September 2020, Francisco Partners investment GoodRx went public on the Nasdaq
The Nasdaq Stock Market () (National Association of Securities Dealers Automated Quotations Stock Market) is an American stock exchange based in New York City. It is the most active stock trading venue in the US by volume, and ranked second ...
, with a market cap of about $19.4 billion.
2021
On January 11, 2021, Francisco Partners completed acquisition of Forcepoint. In March 2021, the firm entered into a partnership with Zenefits
TriNet Zenefits (legal name: YourPeople, Inc., previously known as Zenefits) is a technology company based in San Francisco, that offers cloud-based software as a service to companies for managing their human resources, with a particular focus o ...
that gave them full control of the company.
Also in early 2021, Francisco Partners acquired MyHeritage
MyHeritage is an online genealogy platform with web, mobile, and software products and services, introduced by the Israeli company MyHeritage in 2003. Users of the platform can obtain their family trees, upload and browse through photos, and sear ...
for a reported $600 million. In May 2021, Francisco Partners and TPG Capital
TPG Inc., previously known as Texas Pacific Group and TPG Capital, is an American investment company based in Fort Worth, Texas. The private equity firm is focused on leveraged buyouts and growth capital. TPG manages investment funds in growth c ...
agreed to acquire cloud-based integration Cloud-based integration is a form of systems integration business delivered as a cloud computing service that addresses data, process, service-oriented architecture (SOA) and application integration.
Description
Integration platform as a service ( ...
business Boomi from Dell
Dell is an American based technology company. It develops, sells, repairs, and supports computers and related products and services. Dell is owned by its parent company, Dell Technologies.
Dell sells personal computers (PCs), servers, data ...
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.
2022
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 a reported $1 billion.
Business model
Francisco Partners specializes in financing divisional buyouts, take privates of public companies, sponsored mergers and acquisitions
Mergers and acquisitions (M&A) are business transactions in which the ownership of companies, other business organizations, or their operating units are transferred to or consolidated with another company or business organization. As an aspect ...
, 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 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
Venture capital (often abbreviated as VC) is a form of private equity financing that is provided by venture capital firms or funds to startups, early-stage, and emerging companies that have been deemed to have high growth potential or which ha ...
-backed companies, as well as many divisions of large conglomerates and IT companies worldwide.
Offices and employees
The firm is based in San Francisco, California
San Francisco (; Spanish for " Saint Francis"), officially the City and County of San Francisco, is the commercial, financial, and cultural center of Northern California. The city proper is the fourth most populous in California and 17th ...
, with additional offices including one in London
London is the capital and largest city of England and the United Kingdom, with a population of just under 9 million. It stands on the River Thames in south-east England at the head of a estuary down to the North Sea, and has been a majo ...
, United Kingdom. Francisco Partners 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 The chief investment officer (CIO) is a job title for the board level head of investments within an organization. The CIO's purpose is to understand, manage, and monitor their organization's portfolio of assets, devise strategies for growth, act as ...
.
List of investments
Top-ranked in 2020 among tech specialist private equity firms, Francisco Partners has a list of portfolio companies that changes frequently. Though not a comprehensive list, noteworthy acquisitions and investments include GoodRx
GoodRx Holdings, Inc. is an American healthcare company that operates a telemedicine platform and a free-to-use website and mobile app that track prescription drug prices in the United States and provide free drug coupons for discounts on medic ...
, BeyondTrust
BeyondTrust (formerly Symark) is an American company that develops, markets, and supports a family of privileged identity management / access management (PIM/PAM), privileged remote access, and vulnerability management products for UNIX, Linux, W ...
, Renaissance Learning
Renaissance Learning, Inc. (also known simply as Renaissance) is a software as a service and learning analytics company that makes cloud-based, Pre-K–12 educational software and adaptive assessments. Renaissance employs about 1,000 employees in ...
, MyHeritage
MyHeritage is an online genealogy platform with web, mobile, and software products and services, introduced by the Israeli company MyHeritage in 2003. Users of the platform can obtain their family trees, upload and browse through photos, and sear ...
, Forcepoint
Forcepoint, an American multinational corporation software company headquartered in Austin, Texas, that develops computer security software and data protection, cloud access security broker, firewall and cross-domain solutions.
Forcepoint ...
, Redis Labs
Redis Ltd. (originally Redis Labs, Garantia Data) is a private computer software company headquartered in Mountain View, California. Redis is the sponsor of the open-source in-memory NoSQL database of the same name and the provider of Redis Enter ...
, and Verifone
Verifone is an American multinational corporation headquartered in Coral Springs, Florida. Verifone provides technology for electronic payment transactions and value-added services at the point-of-sale. Verifone sells merchant-operated, consume ...
.
In the past, Francisco Partners has held, among others, investments or ownership of ClickSoftware Technologies
ClickSoftware is an American technology company which offers automated mobile workforce management and service optimization solutions for enterprise and small businesses, both for mobile and in-house resources. Since 2020, it has been a subsidiary ...
, Comodo Group
Xcitium, formerly known as Comodo Security Solutions, Inc., is a cybersecurity company headquartered in Bloomfield, New Jersey in the United States.
History
The company was founded in 1998 in the United Kingdom by Melih Abdulhayoğlu. The compa ...
, Connecture, Discovery Education
Discovery, Inc. was an American multinational mass media factual television conglomerate based in New York City. Established in 1985, the company operated a group of factual and lifestyle television brands, such as the namesake Discovery Chann ...
, iconectiv
iconectiv is a supplier of network planning and network management services to telecommunications providers. Known as Bellcore after its establishment in the United States in 1983 as part of the break-up of the Bell System, the company's name ...
, LogMeIn
GoTo, formerly LogMeIn Inc., is a flexible-work provider of software as a service (SaaS) and cloud-based remote work tools for collaboration and IT management, with products including GoTo Connect, GoTo Resolve, Rescue, Central, and more, built ...
, Perforce
Perforce, legally Perforce Software, Inc., is an American developer of software used for developing and running applications, including version control software, web-based repository management, developer collaboration, application lifecycle man ...
(50% ownership), Redis Labs
Redis Ltd. (originally Redis Labs, Garantia Data) is a private computer software company headquartered in Mountain View, California. Redis is the sponsor of the open-source in-memory NoSQL database of the same name and the provider of Redis Enter ...
, Sandvine
Sandvine Incorporated is an application and network intelligence company based in Waterloo, Ontario.
Sandvine markets network policy control products that are designed to implement broad network policies, including Internet censorship, congestion ...
, (formerly Procera Networks
Procera Networks is a networking equipment company based in Fremont, California, United States, that designs and sells Network Intelligence solutions based on deep packet inspection (DPI) technology. Procera sells solutions to telecom operators ...
), and 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 ...
.
References
External links
FranciscoPartners.com
{{Authority control
1999 establishments in California
Companies based in San Francisco
Financial services companies established in 1999
Private equity firms of the United States
Privately held companies based in California