Francisco Partners

Francisco Partners was founded in 1999 — during the first technology boom, in the weeks before the NASDAQ peaked — on a premise that was either perfectly timed or dramatically contrarian, depending on when you first heard it: that technology companies, not financial services companies or industrial businesses or healthcare systems, were the right targets for disciplined private equity investment. Founders Dipanjan Deb, Sanford Robertson, David Stanton, Benjamin Ball, and Neil Garfinkel brought to the proposition backgrounds that spanned TPG Capital, Robertson Stephens, and the earliest generation of technology-focused investment banking. They were, in the parlance of the era, believers.

Twenty-five years later, Francisco Partners manages $45 billion in assets across funds that have invested in more than 450 technology companies worldwide, executing buyouts, carve-outs, growth investments, and recapitalizations in markets ranging from enterprise software to semiconductors, healthcare IT to cybersecurity. The firm's 2022 fundraise — $13.5 billion for its flagship Fund VII and $3.3 billion for Agility III, both substantially oversubscribed and drawing capital from more than 160 institutional investors across 30 countries — represents the most consequential validation of a thesis held for a quarter century.

The firm is particularly known for its expertise in corporate carve-outs: acquiring divisions and subsidiaries from large technology companies that no longer consider them core, and then providing the focus, capital, and operating expertise to build them into independent businesses capable of competing for the next decade. The acquisition of IBM's Watson Health division as Merative in 2022, the $2.1 billion acquisition of Synopsys's Software Integrity Group, and the $1.2 billion purchase of Jama Software from Insight Partners in 2024 reflect a consistent appetite for complexity and a track record of navigating it. GrowthCap named Francisco Partners to its Top Private Equity Firms list in 2024 — a recognition that its CEO DJ Deb received with a characteristically measured observation: they are grateful to have worked with so many talented management teams over the years.