Thoma Bravo Announces Strategic Acquisition of Calabrio to Accelerate Company’s Cloud-first Customer Experience Growth

Acquisition from KKR follows significant growth and successful evolution to the cloud

Thoma Bravo, a leading private equity investment firm focused on the software and technology-enabled services sectors, and Calabrio, the customer experience intelligence company, today announced a definitive purchase agreement whereby Thoma Bravo will acquire Calabrio from KKR, a leading global investment firm. Financial details were not disclosed.

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Accelerated Growth Path

Founded in 2007, Calabrio provides products and services to help companies streamline customer service, support and workforce management through cloud-first software systems. The company’s Calabrio ONE® software suite has proved mission critical during the pandemic, allowing organizations to quickly and seamlessly shift customer, employee and partner-facing support and services teams to a work-from-home environment. Tom Goodmanson, President and CEO of Calabrio, will continue to lead the company along with the existing leadership team in Minneapolis, Minn.

“Organizations are quickly adopting native cloud-first software systems, as well as customer and workforce analytics, which has been a driving factor in Calabrio’s growth through the last year,” said Goodmanson. “As the model for business moves to a hybrid approach with many employees expected to work from home permanently, our growth opportunity continues to accelerate.”

“KKR has been a phenomenal partner, helping us successfully execute our transition to the cloud, drive growth for the business and affirm our position as the leading customer-centric workforce engagement management software platform. As we enter our next stage of growth, we are thrilled to be partnering with Thoma Bravo to execute on the significant opportunities ahead of us,” Goodmanson added.

“Calabrio was in the unique position of having predicted a trajectory to cloud-first systems more than a decade ago and used this premise to build intelligent applications around a strong cloud-based foundation,” said Seth Boro, a Managing Partner at Thoma Bravo. “The pandemic only accelerated this digital transformation and Calabrio seized the opportunity to solidify its place as the leading customer experience intelligence brand. We look forward to collaborating closely with Tom and his team as the company enters this new growth chapter.”

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“It has been a pleasure working alongside Tom and the whole Calabrio team over the last few years to establish Calabrio as the pre-eminent cloud-first workforce engagement management platform that it is today,” said John Park, Head of Americas Technology Private Equity at KKR. “We are incredibly proud of Calabrio’s success to date and look forward to watching it continue to thrive.”

Forward to the Future

Calabrio has a strong track record of delivering recurring revenue, allowing the company to continually invest in organic growth, including expanded product, services, sales and marketing teams. With KKR’s backing, Calabrio has also proven adept at integrating acquired companies, as evidenced by the acquisition of Swedish workforce management software provider Teleopti in 2019. Thoma Bravo will provide Calabrio with new capital and can leverage its deep expertise in enterprise software and proven operational capabilities to accelerate organic growth as well as targeted inorganic growth opportunities.

Mike Hoffmann, a Principal at Thoma Bravo, added, “Calabrio’s deep partnerships with both established and up-and-coming cloud-based contact center vendors have put the company in an excellent position to enable digital transformation with enterprises of all sizes. We are confident that Thoma Bravo’s deep operational experience with innovative software businesses can build upon this momentum and growth trajectory.”

Perella Weinberg Partners LP is acting as financial advisor to Calabrio. Kirkland & Ellis, LLP is serving as legal counsel to Thoma Bravo. Golub Capital is providing committed financing for the transaction.

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