How it started
1999–2011
Francisco Partners was founded in August 1999, in Menlo Park, California, during the emergence of dedicated technology buyout firms. Founders Sanford Robertson, Dipanjan Deb, David Stanton, Benjamin Ball, and Neil Garfinkel came from a variety of private equity firms. Robertson had been the founder of the technology-focused investment bank Robertson Stephens, while Deb left TPG Capital in August 1999, in order to help found the firm. Among its notable early investments, in 2000 the firm paid $375 million in cash to purchase 90% of AMD's communications products division. Francisco Partners then raised $800 million in 2002 to purchase 90% of Global eXchange Services, a unit of the General Electric Company handling sales operations for about 30,000 multinational companies.
The firm purchased NPTest in 2003, the semiconductor-testing unit of Schlumberger, and by the following year Francisco Partners had more than 30 active portfolio companies. Francisco Partners purchased Smart Modular from the Solectron Corporation in 2004, with Smart Modular going public two years later. From 2005 until 2010 the firm owned the software company RedPrairie. In 2006 the company led a leveraged buyout of Metrologic Instruments, which makes laser and holographic-based scanners, and also purchased WatchGuard. The firm purchased API Healthcare in 2008, and by 2010 Francisco Partners' other healthcare holdings included AdvancedMD, Healthland, QuadraMed, and T-System.
2012–2015
By 2012, the Francisco Partners' funds had about $7 billion in capital and invested "exclusively in technology companies across sectors including semiconductors, capital equipment and electronics components." That year the company acquired the software company Ichor from American Industrial Partners, as well as Plex Systems, and Kewill. The firm invested in Paymetric in 2013, selling the company to Vantiv in Atlanta, Georgia four years later. After acquiring the e-commerce services company Avangate in 2013, in 2014 the firm invested in the software company Prosper, with Francisco Partners' executive David Golob becoming a Prosper director. Also in 2014, Francisco Partners invested in the information technology company CoverMyMeds, and paid $120 million for a majority stake, in the controversial spy company NSO Group, sold in 2019. The firm completed raising about $2.9 billion for its fourth fund in 2015. That year, the firm also purchased the California-based analytics company Procera Networks for $240 million and the Israeli workplace management company ClickSoftware Technologies for $438 million. The firm invested in GoodRx in 2015 as well.
2016–2019
From Wikipedia’s article on Francisco Partners, shared under CC BY-SA 4.0.2