In what has to be one of the biggest software company exits — especially for a homegrown company — in Portland, Jama Software, which had already been partially purchased by Private Equity today officially exited to Francisco Partners for $1.2 billion, a liquidity event that bought the stakes owned by Insight Partners, Madrona, and Oregon Venture Fund.
[UPDATE] Portland Business Journal is reporting that the Oregon Venture Fund return multiple is “more than 60x return on those shares.” [/UPDATE]
“We are thrilled to work with Francisco Partners and leverage their expertise as we further accelerate our rapid expansion across enterprises, industries and continents”, said Marc Osofsky, CEO, Jama Software. “We thank Insight Partners, who have been tremendous supporters of Jama Software’s growth over the past six years.”
“The engineering management market is in the early stages of a fundamental transformation which Jama Software is at the forefront of. We are ecstatic to be partnering with Marc and his team in continuing to execute on their industry-leading vision and strategy”, said Petri Oksanen and Mario Razzini, Partners at Francisco Partners.
As the Portland Business Journal highlighted, Francisco Partners is also the firm that helped purchase New Relic, making it a private company once again.
Jama has about 300 employees globally with around 100 based in the Portland headquarters. The company has an office in downtown Portland that is used for team meetings and collaborative space, said Osofsky. Employees can come in when they want to, but the company is virtual first, he added.
Tim Porter, the managing director for Madrona, shared his thoughts on LinkedIn:
One of the largest software exits for #Portland #PDX! Special thanks and shout-out to founder Eric Winquist, previous CEO Scott Roth, and the many Jamanians who contributed mightily to building the company to this point. Thanks and congrats to Oregon Venture Fund for their support over the years, for my first intro to the company from Matt Compton, and early board members Drew Smith and Bruce Rhine. Congrats again Team Jama – so exciting — thanks for all the hard work and awesome execution!
I’ll always remember Jama as a member of that group of Portland startups in the early days of SaaS that seemed steadfast on proving that a meaningful company could be built in Portland. That building a valuable company did not require them to be pulling up roots and relocating to another city on the west coast. They were also — uniquely at the time — one of the more successful companies that seemed to eschew venture capital investment in the early days. Only selling equity positions in the company when it became apparent that it was the right move for continued growth.
For more, see coverage in:
Or read the press release from Jama Software.
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