Robert Smith is the Founder, Chairman, and Chief Executive Officer of Vista Equity Partners. A March 2018 Forbes profile described Vista’s performance: “Since the firm's inception in 2000, Vista's private equity funds have returned 22% net of fees annually to limited partners, according to PitchBook data. Vista Equity Partners ( ^Vista or the ^Firm ) was founded in 2000 and is led today by co-founders Robert Smith, CEO and Brian Sheth, President. Stephen Davis, the third founding principal, left Vista in 2009 in a mutually agreed upon separation. Vista maintains offices in San Francisco, Chicago, and Austin. Vista believes the transformative power of technology is the key to an even better future – a healthier planet, a smarter economy, a diverse and inclusive community and a broader path to prosperity. Further information is available at vistaequitypartners.com. Follow Vista on LinkedIn, @Vista Equity Partners, and on Twitter, @VistaEquity.

Vista Equity Partners Complaints
Vista Equity Partners Standard Operating Procedures Template
Vista Equity Partners Standard Operating Procedures Manual
Vista Equity Cognitive Test

Vista Equity Partners, which invests primarily in software and technology-enabled companies, applies a set of more than 50 proprietary standard operating procedures in areas such as product. With offices in San Francisco, Chicago, and Austin, Vista Equity Partners is a private equity firm that makes targeted investments in software and technology-enabled businesses. Today, Vista Equity Partners has approximately $6 billion in committed equity capital.

Vista Equity Partners Promotes New Leadership to the Firm’s Private Equity Endeavor and Foundation Funds

Rachel Arnold Appointed Senior Managing Director and Co-Head of Endeavor Fund; Patrick Severson Appointed Senior Managing Director and Co-Head of Foundation Fund

Vista Equity Partners (“Vista”), a leading global investment firm focused exclusively on enterprise software, data and technology-enabled businesses, today announced the Firm will be making the following leadership appointments to its private equity funds:

Rachel Arnold will be appointed Senior Managing Director and Co-Head of Vista’s Endeavor Fund alongside current Co-Head René Stewart;
Patrick Severson will be appointed Senior Managing Director and Co-Head of Vista’s Foundation Fund alongside current Co-Head Marc Teillon.

Rachel Arnold has been a vital member of the Vista ecosystem for over 18 years, working as an operating executive within the portfolio and with both the Foundation and Endeavor Fund teams. Throughout her tenure, Ms. Arnold has participated in the investment process, advised portfolio executives and managed portfolio operations strategies. She has worked with over 20 Vista portfolio companies and currently sits on the boards of Dispatch, Kazoo, RadarFirst, TripleSeat and Zapproved. She was actively involved in the Firm’s investments in AGDATA, Autotask, BigMachines, Bullhorn, Kibo, Lanyon, Lone Wolf, Naviga, PeopleAdmin, Relias Learning, SecureLink and Social Solutions. She will be leading the Endeavor Fund alongside René Stewart.

“Rachel helped launch the Endeavor Fund, and it is a privilege to now partner with her to co-lead one of the world’s largest tech buyout funds led exclusively by women,” said René Stewart, Senior Managing Director and Co-Head of the Vista Endeavor Fund. “Her strong leadership, proven ability to build and inspire teams and strategic operating expertise will be powerful tools as Fund Co-Head.”

Patrick Severson brings more than 21 years of experience investing in the enterprise software space, including almost a decade at Vista and over a decade at Warburg Pincus investing in software companies at all stages. His leadership within two of Vista’s most recent successful exit events, Granicus and Wrike, are among his many contributions as an expert enterprise software investor. Mr. Severson currently sits on the boards of AGDATA, AlertMedia, ARCOS, Four Winds, Granicus, Kibo and Sonatype, and works with the Firm’s investment in Trintech. He will be leading the Foundation Fund alongside Marc Teillon.

“Patrick has taken on progressive leadership responsibilities, making this a very natural evolution for the Foundation Fund,” said Marc Teillon, Senior Managing Director and Co-Head of the Vista Foundation Fund. “He builds comradery among his deal teams and delivers the highest standard of quality and results as seen through the investments he has worked on. I am thrilled to work closely with Patrick in this new capacity.”

With these promotions, Alan Cline, currently Co-Head of Vista’s Endeavor Fund, and Rob Rogers, currently Co-Head of Vista’s Foundation Fund, will become Senior Advisors to their respective funds and to the executive leadership of Vista. They will remain on their respective Investment Committees and continue to work on portfolio company initiatives.

Vista’s Endeavor Fund focuses on mission-critical, high-growth enterprise software, data and technology-enabled businesses with $10 million to $30 million in annual recurring revenue. The Fund’s second vehicle Endeavor Fund II raised over $1 billion in capital commitments in 2019. Vista’s Foundation Fund invests in middle-market enterprise software, data, and technology-enabled companies seeking to scale their businesses and accelerate their growth trajectory. The Fund’s most recent vehicle Foundation Fund IV raised approximately $4.5 billion in 2020.

About Vista Equity Partners

Vista is a leading global investment firm with more than $73 billion in assets under management as of September 30, 2020. The firm exclusively invests in enterprise software, data and technology-enabled organizations across private equity, permanent capital, credit, and public equity strategies, bringing an approach that prioritizes creating enduring market value for the benefit of its global ecosystem of investors, companies, customers and employees. Vista’s investments are anchored by a sizable long-term capital base, experience in structuring technology-oriented transactions and proven, flexible management techniques that drive sustainable growth. Vista believes the transformative power of technology is the key to an even better future – a healthier planet, a smarter economy, a diverse and inclusive community and a broader path to prosperity. Further information is available at vistaequitypartners.com. Follow Vista on LinkedIn, @Vista Equity Partners, and on Twitter, @Vista_Equity.

Vista Equity Partners
Dafna Tapiero
vista@laurelstrategies.com
202-776-7776

View source version on businesswire.com: https://www.businesswire.com/news/home/20210324005899/en/

When I think about the world’s largest software companies — my mind goes to Microsoft, Oracle, SAP and a few others. One thing that I didn’t appreciate (prior to GrowthGenius) is the fact that the 80/20 rule applies to the tech space as well — where there is a massive long tail of software/cloud companies that are not named Google, Amazon, Netflix and etc. A recent tweet (see below) along with a few other viewpoints (e.g. Mark Mcleod’s SMB software market thesis) has opened my eyes to the application of private equity in the software-as-a-service (SaaS) space.

One particular organization that caught my eye was Vista Equity Partners. Founded by Robert F. Smith and Brian Shethi, Vista focuses purely on enterprise software solutions and has generated a solid 22.4% return over the past ten years — placing itself in the top quartile of private equity funds in the world. As with any private equity fund, they have an explicit focus on free cash flows — going against the grain of how most tech companies work (top-line focus). Vista now specifically targets companies that have historically had a top-line focus with zero / minimal profitability. The following quote was particularly revealing:

Software companies taste like chicken. They’re selling different products, but 80 percent of what they do is pretty much the same. We exclusively focus on enterprise software.” — Robert Smith

Vista Equity Partners Complaints

As a founder, there is an ideological belief that ‘my product is different’ and requires an equally unique operational process. Having worked on the sales process for 30+ companies in the past few months, I disagree with this belief. I think the effectiveness of a business truly comes down to the ability to create a network effect such that the value of the busin

Vista Equity Partners Standard Operating Procedures