Capital is Available for Emerging Technology Enabled Service Businesses

Capital is available for emerging technology-enabled service businesses as evidenced by private equity firms's investment deals and criteria:

 Illustrative Deals

·         HRO: Achilles Group: $2.5M Growth Equity Financing for Location Expansion – First Analysis

·         Online Payroll: Perquest: Easiest Payroll Ever! – StarVest Partners

·         Workforce Management: SmartTime – General Atlantic

·         RPO: Accolo – Altos Ventures

·         PEO: TriNet – General Atlantic

·         RPO: Pinstripe – Baird Venture Partners

·         RPO – Q4B - Excalibur

·         Marketing Automation: Eloqua: Bessamer Venture Partners

·         VAR CRM: Astadia – Kodiak

·         BPO: BPO Management Services

The following private equity firms are a sampling of the firms that invest in B2B technology and services based businesses.  For a complete description of their investment criteria review their website:

·         Applications Providers: Baker Capital

·         BPO and HR Service Providers: First Analysis

·         Business and Healthcare Services: Baird Venture Partners

·         Business Applications, Business Services, Supply Chain: Altos Ventures

·         Direct Marketing, HR, and Business Services: Sterling Capital

·         Enterprise Solutions: General Atlantic

·         Growth Capital for Technology and Business Services: Susquehanna

·         Growth Equity for Business Services: Frontier Funds

·         Health Care services, Information Technology Services: Frontenac

·         Healthcare Outsourcing and Business Process Outsourcing: Excellere Partners

·         Healthcare, BPO, HRO, and Mid-Market Services: The CapStreet Group

·         Information Technology and Services: Updata Partners

·         Midwest Provider of Growth Capital: CID Capital

·         Private Equity for Business Software and Services: JMI Equity

·         SaaS and Online Platforms: Bay Partners

·         Software and Technology-Enabled Business Services: General Catalyst Partners

·         Software Platform and Niche Leaders: Hummer Winblad Venture Partners

·         Technology and Technology Enabled Services: Adams Street Partners

·         Technology Enabled Business Services: StarVest Venture Partners

 

Since capital is available for emerging businesses the challenge is whether an emerging business is “investable”. The attributes of an "investable" (i.e. investment grade) business follow in the next post.