Clearlake Capital Group has announced it signed a definitive agreement to acquire Cary, North Carolina-based operations management SaaS company Dude Solutions from Warburg Pincus. The terms of the deal were undisclosed. Under Clearlake, Dude Solutions will continue to be led by CEO Ed Roshitsh and the current management team.
“We are excited to partner with Clearlake, who has a successful track record of sponsoring and supporting growing software companies,” said Roshitsh in a statement. “Clearlake’s partnership will provide access to global resources and enable the Company to invest in growth initiatives to better serve our customer base over the long-term.”
What does Dude Solutions do? It is a market leading provider of cloud-based operations management software that automates mission-critical enterprise asset management workflows like work order, inventory, energy, capital planning, facility scheduling, and community development.
“This milestone was achieved by the culmination of a great Dude Solutions team, an excellent partner in Warburg Pincus and over 12,000 organizations which have provided us the honor to assist them in working smarter and more efficiently,” added Dude Solutions co-founders Kent Hudson and Lee Prevost.
Dude Solutions also provides an end-to-end SaaS solution for more than 12,000 clients in education, government, healthcare, senior living, and manufacturing verticals.
“We are impressed by what Dude Solutions has achieved under Ed and the founders’ leadership, and we share their excitement that the Company will serve as an excellent platform for both organic and inorganic growth initiatives,” explained Clearlake co-founder and managing partner Behdad Eghbali and partner Prashant Mehrotra. “Dude Solutions has a market leading software platform that operates in an increasingly complex asset management environment. We look forward to leveraging our O.P.S. approach to support the management team and its many talented and passionate employees in continuing to provide best-in-class operations management software to its client base.”
There are more than 12,000 organizations that use Dude Solutions’ award-winning software for managing maintenance, assets, energy, safety, IT, etc. And the company combines user-friendly technology with its operations engine to empower operations leaders to transform the most important places in our lives.
“Legacy solutions and paper-based approaches are ill-suited for today’s enterprise asset and operations managers,” noted Clearlake VP Paul Huber. “We believe Dude Solutions’ market-leading software uniquely positions the Company to automate asset management processes and create lasting value for clients.”
About five years ago, Warburg Pincus had invested $100 million in Dude Solutions for a minority stake. At the time of the deal, it was one of the largest involving a “Triangle-area” company. And up until the time of Warburg’s investment five years ago, the company was self-funded since it was founded in 1999.
“Over the past five years, Dude Solutions has more than quadrupled to become the market leader in cloud-based operations management software,” commented Warburg Pincus managing director Justin Sadrian. “We are proud to have partnered with Ed, Kent, and Lee as well as the entire Dude Solutions team and we wish the company continued success in the future,” Warburg Pincus principal Alex Stratoudakis commented.
Shea & Co. acted as a financial adviser to Clearlake for this deal. And William Blair & Company was the financial adviser for Dude Solutions and Warburg Pincus.
