Private equity firm Vista Equity Partners has entered an agreement to purchase web management and digital experience company Acquia in a deal valued at $1 billion.
The news follows two strategic acquisitions this year by Acquia — Mautic and Cohesion — which are expected to help the company expand its digital experience offerings.
Why we should care
Acquia has been working to expand its portfolio through product development and acquisitions. We can anticipate Acquia will continue to strengthen its focus on portfolio development and expansion while Vista Equity Partners takes over the company’s operations.
The private equity
firm is well known for acquiring undervalued technology companies and turning
them around for a large profit. A recent example is Vista Equity Partners’ 2016
purchase of Marketo for $1.8 billion. It sold Marketo to Adobe for $4.75 billion
in 2018.
According to Scott Liewehr, principal analyst at Digital Clarity Group, Vista buys companies and centralizes their operations to allow the companies to focus on growth. “Vista, as a PE firm, tends to make money on companies by standardizing their operations to cut costs. It runs the portfolio companies more like divisions of a larger company than independent entities,” Liewehr said.
More on the news
- Once the deal is finalized, Acquia will continue to operate independently.
- Acquia has raised $173.5 million in funding
- Vista Equity Partners current portfolio consists of 60 companies with over 70,000 employees.
- Another Vista Equity Partners, Ping Identity, was purchased by the equity firm 2016, went public just last week.
About The Author
Jennifer Videtta Cannon serves as Third Door Media’s Senior Editor, covering topics from email marketing and analytics to CRM and project management. With over a decade of organizational digital marketing experience, she has overseen digital marketing operations for NHL franchises and held roles at tech companies including Salesforce, advising enterprise marketers on maximizing their martech capabilities. Jennifer formerly organized the Inbound Marketing Summit and holds a certificate in Digital Marketing Analytics from MIT Sloan School of Management.