The Kaseya and Unitrends merger, announced this morning, is the latest M&A deal with private equity ownership working behind the scenes. Over the past few years, private equity investments have redrawn the MSP software industry map multiple times. Today, that map increasingly extends into midmarket enterprise IT departments...It wasn't always like this. The MSP software market was once a renegade industry that largely lived outside of the Wall Street and PE spotlight. That began to change when ConnectWise launched an investment fund in 2010 and began piecing together MSP-centric software assets.Not long after, private equity firms began to discover the sector -- especially as cloud services caught on. While venture capitalists pumped money into high-valuation cloud startups, private equity firms pumped money into the growing MSP software sector, assuming the recurring revenue model (so similar to the cloud sector) would deliver solid returns.2010 - February: ConnectWise announces ConnectWise Capital, invests in LabTech 2011 - May: ConnectWise Capital invests in Quosal 2011 - September: Summit Partners acquires Continuum (formerly Zenith RMM) 2013 - May: SolarWinds acquires N-able 2013 - June: Insight Venture Partners acquires Kaseya 2013 - November: Insight Venture Partners acquires Unitrends 2014 - June: Vista Equity Partners acquires Autotask 2015 - November: ConnectWise reorganizes investments into single company 2016 - February: Silver Lake and Thoma Bravo acquire SolarWinds 2016 - January: TA Associates acquires StorageCraft 2016 - June: SolarWinds acquires LogicNow, launches SolarWinds MSP division 2017 - June: Thoma Bravo acquires Continuum 2017 - July: eFolder, backed by K1, acquires Axcient 2017 - August: Auvik Networks raises $11.8 million 2017 - October: Marlin Equity Partners acquires majority control of AppRiver 2017 - November: Thoma Bravo acquires Barracuda and associated Barracuda MSP business 2017 - November: Vista Equity Partners acquires Datto, and merges Autotask into Datto 2018 - May: Kaseya and Unitrends, two Insight Venture Partners portfolio companies, merge. Timeline Source: ChannelE2E Stay tuned: This blog, featuring deeper analysis, will be updated throughout Thursday.
Content, Channel partners, Mergers and Acquisitions, Channel investors, Mergers and Acquisitions, MSP, Private equity
Private Equity Continues to Redraw MSP Software Industry Map
Joe Panettieri
Joe Panettieri is co-founder & editorial director of MSSP Alert and ChannelE2E, the two leading news & analysis sites for managed service providers in the cybersecurity market.
You can skip this ad in 5 seconds