Francisco Partners

Francisco Partners was founded in August 1999[12] in Menlo Park, California, during the emergence of dedicated technology buyout firms.[13] Founders Sanford Robertson, Dipanjan Deb, David Stanton, Benjamin Ball, and Neil Garfinkel came from a variety of private equity firms. Robertson had been the founder of the technology-focused investment bank Robertson Stephens, while Deb[14] left TPG Capital in August 1999 to help found the firm.[13] Among its notable early investments, in 2000 the firm paid $375 million in cash to purchase 90% of Advanced Micro Devices' communications products division.[15] Francisco Partners then raised $800 million in 2002 to purchase 90% of Global eXchange Services, a unit of the General Electric Company[16][17] handling sales operations for about 30,000 multinational companies.[16]

The firm purchased NPTest in 2003, the semiconductor-testing unit of Schlumberger,[18] and by the following year Francisco Partners had more than 30 active portfolio companies.[19] Francisco Partners purchased Smart Modular from the Solectron Corporation in 2004, with Smart Modular going public two years later.[20] From 2005 until 2010 the firm owned the software company RedPrairie.[21] In 2006 the company led a leveraged buyout of Metrologic Instruments, which makes laser and holographic-based scanners,[22] and also purchased WatchGuard.[11] The firm purchased API Healthcare in 2008[21] and by 2010 Francisco Partners' other healthcare holdings included AdvancedMD, Healthland, QuadraMed, and T-System.[23]

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."[24] That year the company acquired the software company Ichor from American Industrial Partners,[25] as well as Plex Systems[26] and Kewill.[27] The firm invested in Paymetric in 2013,[28] selling the company to Vantiv in Atlanta, Georgia four years later.[29] After acquiring the e-commerce services company Avangate in 2013,[30] in 2014 the firm invested in the software company Prosper, with Francisco Partners' executive David Golob becoming a Prosper director.[31] Also in 2014 Francisco Partners invested in the information technology company CoverMyMeds[3] and paid $120 million for a majority stake[32][33] in the controversial spy company NSO Group,[4][32] sold in 2019.[34] The firm completed raising about $2.9 billion for its fourth fund in 2015.[6] That year the firm also purchased the California-based analytics company Procera Networks for $240 million and the Israeli workplace management company ClickSoftware Technologies for $438 million.[9] The firm invested in GoodRx in 2015 as well.[35]

Francisco joined with Elliott Management in June 2016 to buy the SonicWall[11] and Quest Software[36] subsidiaries from Dell as part of the spinoff of Dell Software.[11][37] 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.[11] Also in 2016, the firm sold Aesynt to Omnicell for $275 million and took Ichor Holdings public with an initial public offering.[36][38] In late 2016, Francisco Partners launched its Agility fund, raising approximately $600 million of committed capital to focus on smaller technology deals.[39] Shortly afterwards, Francisco Partners invested in Dynamo Software,[40] Pet Circle,[41] Discovery Education,[42] and myON, the latter of which was sold in 2018.[43] Additional investments in 2016 and 2017 included companies such as SmartBear Software,[10] iconectiv,[44] Connecture Inc.,[45] Betterment,[46] and Sintec Media.[36]

In 2017, Francisco Partners sold CoverMyMeds to McKesson[47] and Paymetric to Vantiv,[48] and also sold PayLease[49] and Corsair.[50] Francisco Partners bought, and subsequently sold, James Allen.com in 2017.[51] In June 2017, Francisco Partners also acquired Sandvine, a Canadian public company that was combined with Procera.[52] Francisco Partners was named Private Equity Firm of the Year by Mergers & Acquisitions in 2017.[36] The firm's fifth fund, Francisco Partners V, was formed at the end of 2017 with approximately $4 billion of committed capital.[53] The year after Francisco Partners V's launch, the firm acquired Bomgar Corporation,[54] Renaissance Learning,[55] and LegalZoom.[56] In June 2018 Francisco Partners purchased VeriFone[8] for $3.4 billion. Also in 2018, Blackstone’s Strategic Capital Group and Goldman Sachs’ Petershill program acquired a minority stake in Francisco Partners.[53]