Vista Equity Partners acquires Acquia for $1 billion

Private equity firm Vista Equity Partners has entered an agreement to purchase web management and digital experience company Acquia in a deal valued at $1 billion.

The news follows two strategic acquisitions this year by Acquia — Mautic and Cohesion — which are expected to help the company expand its digital experience offerings.

Why we should care

Acquia has been working to expand its portfolio through product development and acquisitions. We can anticipate Acquia will continue to strengthen its focus on portfolio development and expansion while Vista Equity Partners takes over the company’s operations.

The private equity firm is well known for acquiring undervalued technology companies and turning them around for a large profit. A recent example is Vista Equity Partners’ 2016 purchase of Marketo for $1.8 billion. It sold Marketo to Adobe for $4.75 billion in 2018.

According to Scott Liewehr, principal analyst at Digital Clarity Group, Vista buys companies and centralizes their operations to allow the companies to focus on growth. “Vista, as a PE firm, tends to make money on companies by standardizing their operations to cut costs. It runs the portfolio companies more like divisions of a larger company than independent entities,” Liewehr said.

More on the news

• Once the deal is finalized, Acquia will continue to operate independently.
• Acquia has raised $194 million in funding
• Vista Equity Partners current portfolio consists of 60 companies with over 70,000 employees.
• Another Vista Equity Partners, Ping Identity, was purchased by the equity firm 2016, went public just last week.