Thoma Bravo takes critical event management software company Everbridge private in a $1.5B all-cash deal; Everbridge had a market cap of $6.4B in 2021
Paul Sawers / TechCrunch :
Context & Ripple Effects
Everbridge’s sale fits Thoma Bravo’s established pattern of buying established software vendors and moving them out of public markets, following its $12.3B cash acquisition of Proofpoint and its planned take-private of Bottomline Technologies.
The $1.5B transaction also sharpens the contrast with Everbridge’s $6.4B market capitalization in 2021, making it a concrete example of how the public-market reset changed the buyout backdrop for enterprise software.
First-order effects
- Thoma Bravo gains control of Everbridge through an all-cash transaction, while Everbridge ceases to operate as a public company.
- Everbridge shareholders receive cash for their shares rather than retaining exposure to any future recovery in the company’s public valuation.
Second-order effects
- Removing Everbridge from public trading eliminates a listed valuation reference point for critical-event-management software and shifts scrutiny from quarterly market pricing to private-owner execution.
- The deal reinforces Thoma Bravo’s position as an active buyer of enterprise software, putting other mature public software companies on notice that private-equity buyers remain a potential exit route.
Third-order effects
- If similar transactions persist, more mature software businesses may cycle from public ownership into specialist private-equity portfolios, concentrating operational control among a smaller set of buyout firms.
- The gap between prior public-market peaks and take-private prices will remain a central test of whether private ownership can create value through operational changes rather than a return to earlier market multiples.
The trend: This is one data point in the private-equity consolidation of mature enterprise software after public-market valuations reset.