Movement in the data protection services market
As companies become increasingly more interested in disaster recovery initiatives and services, providers are looking to opportunities to expand their potential and meet a wider range of customer needs. Numerous IT organizations and teams across the world are turning to real-time disaster recovery solutions to better protect their data and business-critical applications without accruing significant downtime.
As the volume of data increase, successful providers of disaster recovery and migration software and services, such as Vision Solutions, are becoming more popular on the market. On May 12, Clearlake Capital Group, a leading investment firm for private equity and special situation transactions, announced its intentions to buy Vision Solutions from the private equity investment firm Thoma Bravo.
The end of an era
This deal ends a profitable 10-year partnership with Thoma Bravo, during which the private equity firm supported Vision Solution's growth through acquiring other companies in the data protection marketplace and experiencing revenue growth of 300 percent. In the past few years alone, the disaster recovery provider has acquired Lakeview Technology, iTERA and Double-Take Software. Through this M&A activity, Vision now provides services for around 12,000 customers in more than 70 worldwide.
Managing Partner at Thoma Bravo Scott Crabill stated that the firm has worked diligently with the Vision Solutions' team through the years to establish it as a single-source protection provider of data center solutions. While Vision Solutions has provided ample value to Thoma Bravo, Crabill said his team is grateful to have "contributed to the company's success, and look forward to seeing it reach the next stage of growth with its new partner."
Hope for the future
While the precise financial terms of the deal were not unveiled, company officials expect the acquisition to close by the end of Q2, pending normal regulatory approval. Clearlake Capital Group expressed excitement about acquiring Vision Solutions, with its "proven track record of technological innovations" in terms of its compatibility with Linux and Windows platforms, along with IBM Power Systems.
"Due to the complexity of protecting ever-changing infrastructures and exploding volumes of data, enterprise customers require more simplified and cost effective IT management tools to meet their needs. … We look forward to working with Vision's very experienced management team to continue to build on the Company's world class reputation and its growth trajectory," Partner of Clearlake, Prashant Mehrotra, explained.
With over 25 years of experience serving enterprises and managed service providers, Vision Solutions CEO Nicolaas Vlok expressed his excitement about future M&A growth opportunities now available with Clearlake. Vlok hopes that this partnership will bring about a new chapter for Vision Solutions.