JMI Equity, a growth equity firm, is picking up its investments in software companies, announcing in December it closed fundraising for its JMI Equity Fund IX after bringing in $1.2 billion.
In a press release at the time, JMI said that the fund had strong interest from existing and new investors, enabling it to surpass its target in terms of capital raised. All told, JMI said that since its inception in 1992 it has raised more than $4 billion.
“Over the last 26 years and 140-plus investments in 26 U.S. states, Canada, and Europe, our mission has been to identify and add value to outstanding software companies,” said Harry Gruner, JMI Equity Founder, and Co-Managing General Partner when announcing the closing of the latest fund. “With our new fund, we look forward to continuing to collaborate with founders and management teams to help build and scale world-class software companies.”
JMI plans to continue to focus its investment strategy on high growth software companies and plans to invest in a range of deal sizes from as small as $15 million to more than $100 million. The equity investment firm plans to make both minority and majority investments in the software companies it targets with an eye toward enterprise software companies. Companies that JMI Equity typically invests in have $10 million to $200 million in revenue.
JMI Equity is no stranger to the software market investing in this space since launching the firm back in 1992. The investment firm focuses on software companies that are or have the potential to outperform the market and its rivals. The companies have solid market and product fundamentals and are looking for help to create more shareholder value. JMI Equity provides strategic advice, team-building and value creation strategies to the companies it invests in.
Some of its past investments include Adaptive Insights, which was acquired by Workday, automotiveMastermind which IHS Markit purchased, Capsule Technologies, which was acquired by Qualcomm, Eloqua, which Oracle bought and ServiceNow which went public via an initial public offering.
The new fund comes at a time when the software market is getting a lot of attention from private equity firms and venture capitalists. With companies moving more of their businesses to the cloud and with increased dollars going toward security, the industry is garnering a lot of attention from investors. With uncertainty in the market, it's not clear how robust investment activity will be in the new year, but many anticipate more action from software companies.
