1999–2011 Francisco Partners was founded in August 1999, 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. 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. and by the following year Francisco Partners had more than 30 active portfolio companies. 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.
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. The firm invested in
GoodRx in 2015 as well.
2016–2019 Francisco joined with
Elliott Management in June 2016 to buy the
SonicWall, The SonicWall investment attracted some controversy in the press, as Francisco Partners had also invested in the competitor WatchGuard, going against norms in the private equity industry. Also in 2016, the firm sold Aesynt to Omnicell for $275 million and took Ichor Holdings public with an
initial public offering. In late 2016, Francisco Partners launched its Agility fund, raising approximately $600 million of committed capital to focus on smaller technology deals. Shortly afterwards, Francisco Partners invested in Dynamo Software,
Pet Circle,
Discovery Education, and myON, the latter of which was sold in 2018. Additional investments in 2016 and 2017 included companies such as
SmartBear Software,
iconectiv, and others. and Paymetric to
Vantiv, and also sold PayLease and
Corsair Gaming. Francisco Partners bought, and subsequently sold, James Allen.com in 2017. In June 2017, Francisco Partners also acquired
Sandvine, a Canadian public company that was combined with Procera, for $444 million. Francisco Partners was named Private Equity Firm of the Year by
Mergers & Acquisitions in 2017. The firm's fifth fund, Francisco Partners V, was formed at the end of 2017 with approximately $4 billion of committed capital. The year after Francisco Partners V's launch, the firm acquired Bomgar Corporation,
Renaissance Learning, and
LegalZoom. In June 2018, Francisco Partners purchased
VeriFone for $3.4 billion. Also in 2018,
Blackstone Inc.'s Strategic Capital Group and
Goldman Sachs'
Petershill program acquired a minority stake in Francisco Partners.
2020–2021 In June 2020, Francisco Partners wrapped up fundraising for three funds: $7.45 billion for its VI LP fund, $1.5 billion for its Agility II fund and $750 million for Francisco Partners Credit. In August 2020, Francisco Partners joined
Diligent Corporation's Modern Leadership Initiative and pledged to create five new board roles among its portfolio companies for gender or ethnically diverse candidates. On August 31, 2020, the deal closed for Francisco Partners to buy
LogMeIn, most known for
LastPass password manager, for $4.3 billion together with Evergreen Coast Capital Corp., a private equity affiliate of Elliott Management. In September 2020, Francisco Partners investment GoodRx
went public on the
Nasdaq, with a market cap of about $19.4 billion. On October 26, 2020, Francisco Partners announced the acquisition of
Forcepoint, a cybersecurity company formerly owned by
Raytheon Technologies. Shortly thereafter, the firm bought
MyFitnessPal from
Under Armour for $345 million. The acquisition completed on December 1, 2020. On January 11, 2021, Francisco Partners completed acquisition of Forcepoint. In March 2021, the firm entered into a partnership with
Zenefits that gave them full control of the company. Also in early 2021, Francisco Partners acquired
MyHeritage for a reported $600 million. In May 2021, Francisco Partners and
TPG Capital agreed to acquire
cloud-based integration business
Boomi from
Dell for $4 billion. In July 2021 Francisco Partners acquired
STARLIMS from
Abbott Informatics. They also completed an acquisition for the EHR vendor OfficeAlly in December 2021. In October 2021, Francisco Partners raised $2.2 billion in its FP Credit Partners II fund.
2022–2025 On January 21, 2022, Francisco Partners acquired health data assets from
IBM's
Watson Health unit. These assets included Health Insights, MarketScan, Clinical Development, Social Program Management, Micromedex, and imaging software offerings. The assets were valued at a reported $1 billion. In July 2022, raised $13.5 billion for its VII LP fund and $3.3 billion for its Francisco Partners Agility III LP fund. Also in 2022, Francisco Partners announced the acquisition of bswift from
CVS Health. Bswift (stylilzed as "bswift") is a provider of software and services for benefits and human resources administration. In May 2023, Francisco Partners completed the acquisition of
Sumo Logic for $1.7 billion. In July 2023, together with
TPG Inc., Francisco Partners agreed to acquire web tracking and analytics firm
New Relic in an all-cash deal valued at $6.5 billion. In August 2023, IBM agreed to sell
The Weather Company to Francisco Partners for an undisclosed sum. The sale was finalized on February 1, 2024, and the cost was disclosed as $1.1 billion, with $750 million in cash, $100 million deferred over seven years, and $250 million in contingent consideration. In September 2023, American
investment management firm Kohlberg Kravis Roberts sold the
audiobook publisher
RBmedia to private equity firms
H.I.G. Capital and Francisco Partners in a transaction valued at over $1 billion. In December 2023, Francisco Partners completed its purchase of
British data security provider
Blancco Technology Group, in a deal worth £175 million. In February 2024, Francisco Partners and
TA Associates signed an agreement to become co-controlling shareholders of Orisha, a European software company. In March 2024, Francisco Partners announced the acquisition of Jama Software, an industry leading requirements management and traceability solution provider, for $1.2B. In October 2024, Francisco Partners and
Clearlake Capital completed their acquisitions of American
software company
Synopsys' Software Integrity Group (later renamed Black Duck Software), for $2.1 billion. That same month,
Global Payments sold its
medical software business,
AdvancedMD, to Francisco Partners for $1.13 billion. In January 2025, Francisco Partners announced the final closing of FP Credit Partners III, L.P., an opportunistic credit fund worth $3.3 billion, which exceeded the target fund amount of $2.3 billion. In March 2025, Francisco Partners acquired Quorum Software, a provider of energy software worldwide. With this investment, it claims to hope to further strengthen its platform and provide customers with world-class software and services. In October 2025, Francisco Partners agreed to acquire
Jamf in an all cash-deal valued at roughly $2.2 billion. Francisco Partners has invested in or acquired companies including
GoodRx,
BeyondTrust,
Renaissance Learning, and
MyHeritage. Francisco Partners has also held, among others, investments or ownership of ClickSoftware Technologies and
Comodo Group. ==Business model==