- Vista Equity Partners announced it has acquired a majority stake in Acquia. The deal was reportedly valued at $1 billion.
Acquia, an open digital experience company, announced recently that it signed a definitive agreement to receive a majority investment from Vista Equity Partners — a leading investment company focused on enterprise software, data, and technology-enabled businesses.
The partnership with Vista will provide operational expertise to help accelerate Acquia’s growth trajectory as the company continues to scale. A number of Acquia’s existing investors will retain a stake in the company.
Acquia recently acquired Mautic and Cohesion, which expanded on its offerings to customers. And the acquisitions will enable Acquia to grow its presence in the digital experience platform (DXP) market. Currently, Acquia serves more than 30 companies in the Fortune 100.
Acquia plans to maximize recent investments to take on legacy DXP providers and capture new market share with the backing from Vista. And Vista’s portfolio of more than 60 companies and over 70,000 employees (combined with its operational expertise) provides Acquia access to a vast community of resources, peers, and practice experts.
Acquia’s Open DXP Platform was built on an open-source architecture and is informed by the largest independent developer community in Drupal. This allows Acquia to easily fuse disparate data and marketing technologies along with automating digital experiences at scale.
Acquia was founded as the commercial arm of Drupal by Dries Buytaert and Jay Batson. Buytaert founded Drupal out of his dorm room at the University of Antwerp back in 2000.
While the terms of the deal were undisclosed, a number of reports pointed out that it was valued at $1 billion. Vista currently has more than $50 billion in cumulative capital commitments. And Vista specializes in buying technology companies and improving upon them to substantially add value. For example, Vista acquired Marketo for $1.8 billion in 2016 and sold it to Adobe for $4.75 billion within a few years after that.
“Vista shares our belief that the DXP market is ripe for disruption and we are excited to partner with them to accelerate our plans,” said Acquia CEO Michael Sullivan. “Over 4,000 Acquia customers crave faster innovation, greater agility, and better integrations than legacy marketing cloud providers can deliver. Vista’s support will allow us to invest more in R&D, expand faster, and get products to market quicker while also continuing to give back to the Drupal and Mautic developer communities.”
Going forward, Acquia will continue to operate independently. And the transaction is currently expected to close in the coming weeks and is subject to customary closing conditions and regulatory approvals.
“The world’s leading and most innovative digital brands understand that their ability to deliver a seamless digital customer experience is essential to their success,” explained Robert F. Smith, the Founder, Chairman, and CEO of Vista. “Acquia understands this and is leading the way in providing innovative solutions to its customers while, at the same time, giving back to the open-source community. We are thrilled to partner with Acquia and believe the company is well-positioned to capitalize on the tremendous opportunity in the DXP marketplace.”
Goldman Sachs & Co. LLC had acted as the exclusive financial advisor to Acquia. And Goodwin Procter served as the company’s legal advisor. Kirkland & Ellis worked as legal advisor to Vista.
