Navint Partners Acquires Statera

Transaction Overview

• On October 30, 2019, lead-to-revenue focused consulting firm Navint Partners announced its acquisition of Statêra, a CPQ & Billing provider and Silver Salesforce Consulting Partner via financial sponsor Boathouse Capital in an LBO.
• Notably on May 2015, Navint received development capital from Boathouse Capital. The initiative introduced Sean Joyce as SVP Recurring Revenue Technologies (formerly of Salesforce, Apttus and Zuora) and Dexter Battle as Chief Architect (formerly of Slalom, Apttus, and Salesforce) in 2019.
• This acquisition, along with its executive hires, brings together deep Salesforce CLM, CPQ and billing expertise to deliver end-to-end, lead-to-revenue transformation, a critical component for the recurring revenue model.

Salesforce CPQ & Billing Takes an Elevated Role

• The Salesforce CPQ space has seen a steady increase in transaction activity, with participation from both strategic and private equity buyers.
• A recent CPQ transaction was A5’s acquisition of Cloudware, a Canadian Salesforce CPQ & Billing provider, in Aug 2019. Cloudware marks A5’s second Salesforce transaction in the past year, its other being Ramsey Solutions in Sep 2018.
• Similarly, in Feb 2018, Simplus acquired CPQ & CLM provider CirrusOne, followed by its $20m Series C and acquisition of Sqware Peg in Jan 2019. True Blue Partners is a co-investor in Simplus.
• Another notable transaction in the space was Ness Technologies’ acquisition of Sovereign CRM in June 2019. Sovereign CRM is the second largest CPQ implementation partner by number of engagements.
• Salesforce consulting partner ecosystem continues to see a significant rise in investment and M&A activity. TBP advised OSF commerce in its $23m growth equity raise to fuel growth through organic and inorganic means.

A CPQ Carol

• Salesforce’s $360m acquisition of SteelBrick in Dec 2015 introduced CPQ & Billing as part of its core object model under Sales Cloud. The acquisition created the first SaaS CPQ Solution.
• Five months after the transaction, Salesforce-native CPQ & CLM software provider Apttus broke into the Microsoft ecosystem with the rationale of realizing new markets. Notably, both Apttus and SteelBrick received investment from Salesforce Ventures prior to their exits.
• On April 2019, Apttus CEO Frank Holland announced plans to pivot back to Salesforce. This initiative acknowledges Salesforce as the powerhouse of the market and customer demand for connected CLM and CPQ under a unified platform.

Dreamforce 2019

• True Blue Partners team members will be at Dreamforce 19. If you would like to schedule a time to say hello in person please email Sunil Grover at sgrover @ truebluepartners . com or Kevin Chen at kchen @ truebluepartners . com

TBP was NOT an advisor to this transaction.