Thoma Bravo Buys Continuum
Continuum, a major provider of tools for managed service providers (MSPs), is being acquired by private equity firm Thoma Bravo LLC.
The deal was announced Wednesday evening. Terms were not disclosed.
Thoma Bravo is buying Continuum from Summit Partners about five and a half years after Summit Partners bought the remote monitoring and management (RMM) business of Zenith Infotech, first calling the company Zenith RMM LLC and then a short time later renaming it Continuum.
"Thoma Bravo is the perfect financial and strategic partner for us at this important stage of our company's growth," said Michael George, CEO of Continuum, in a statement in which he also credited Summit Partners for its support over the years. "This investment will enable us to continue to capitalize on our core value propositions and increase critical investments in product development, as well as sales and marketing tools for our MSP partners to help accelerate their growth."
Those investments could lead to add-on acquisitions, according to a statement from a partner at Thoma Bravo, A.J. Rohde. "What Michael George and his team have delivered on in terms of an innovative product suite and full software and services model has been very impressive, and we can't wait to work with them to accelerate the world-class offering they deliver to MSPs, both organically and through add-on acquisitions," Rohde said.
The acquisition comes as part of Thoma Bravo's Discover Fund, which was started in 2016 and focuses on growth-oriented technology companies in the lower middle market. Other Discover Fund investments include integrated risk management provider Riskonnect, cybersecurity provider Bomgar, supply chain operating network Elmica, analytics company Infogix, and parking management software firm T2 Systems.
Within the broader portfolio of companies in which Thoma Bravo either currently holds a stake with its $17 billion in capital commitments or has previously invested are Blue Coat Systems, Hyland Software, Riverbed, SailPoint and SonicWall. One company in that class is SolarWinds, which offers MSP tools that compete with Continuum's.
While the privately held Continuum does not share revenue figures, other statistics touted in the acquisition announcement show growth over the company's scale in 2011. The size of the Continuum channel has gone from 3,000 partners to 5,800 partners, the number of endpoints managed went from 400,000 to more than 1 million, and the employee headcount rose from around 600 to more than 1,400.
Posted by Scott Bekker on June 14, 2017