Two months after its founding CEO mysteriously left, the once IPO-bound Apttus has been acquired by a private equity firm

Kirk Krappe headshot

Two months after its founding CEO mysteriously left the company, Apttus has a new majority owner.
The private equity firm Thoma Bravo, which also owns the cloud security company Barracuda Networks, announced its majority acquisition of Apttus on Tuesday. The terms of the deal were not disclosed.
Apttus, which was last valued at $1.86 billion, previously said it would IPO in 2016, and again in 2017.
But the company never made it to Wall Street.

Two months after Apttus's founding CEO Kirk Krappe mysteriously exited the company, the sales software startup has a new majority owner.

On Tuesday, the software-heavy private equity firm Thoma Bravo announced that it acquired a majority stake in Apttus. The companies didn't disclosed the terms of the deal.

David Murphy, former president and COO of Blue Coat Systems and a partner at Thoma Bravo, will take over as executive chairman at Apttus, a role left in flux since Krappe's abrupt departure on July 2.

Krappe, who co-founded the company in 2006, was replaced by a newly created "office of the CEO," which it said would run the company until it could find a new CEO. Krappe didn't respond to a request for comment and Apttus declined to comment on the circumstances of his departure.

"What we can say is that Apttus views this development positively and believes Thoma Bravo can instill greater operational excellence, strengthen our market leadership and allow us to continue providing indispensable value to our customers," an Apttus spokesman said of the acquisition.

Majority acquisition comes after missed IPO promises

Apttus sells "quote-to-cash" software which integrates with customer relationship management programs like Salesforce to automate the contract and payment process.

The company was last valued at $1.86 billion in 2017, according to PitchBook, after raising $55 million led by the private equity firm Premji Invest, with participation from existing investors at Salesforce Ventures, K1, IBM Ventures and Iconiq Capital.

Krappe told TechCrunch that Apttus would IPO in 2016 if it didn't get bought. Later that year, he told MarketWatch that the company intended to go public in 2017, under then-chief financial offer Sydney Carey. In December 2017, however, Carey was replaced as CFO by Terry Schmid. Schmid previously worked as CFO at Imperva, which he took took public in 2011.

In October 2017, Bloomberg reported that Apttus hired Goldman Sachs to manage the offering.

It's unclear whether Apttus intends to pursue an IPO under its new ownership structure, but that route isn't common when it comes to private equity owners. Typically, private equity firms like Thoma Bravo buy companies like Apttus in order to sell them down the road at a premium.

In February, Thoma Bravo acquired the cloud security company Barracuda Networks for $1.6 billion. In April 2017, it acquired a minority stake in the security software company McAfee, which was previously part of Intel.

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