Private-equity firm Vista Equity Partners agreed to buy educational-software maker Pluralsight Inc., PS 0.37% according to people familiar with the matter.
The deal values Pluralsight at $20.26 a share, or $3.5 billion including debt, the companies said in a statement confirming an earlier report by The Wall Street Journal.
Farmington, Utah-based Pluralsight is a cloud based online-education platform for software developers that sells to both businesses and individuals.
Private-equity firms like Vista were already focused on business-software providers, with their recurring-revenue models, before the pandemic increased interest in companies whose offerings make it easier to reach employees and students remotely.
In March, Vista rival Thoma Bravo LP took education-software company Instructure Inc. private in a roughly $2 billion deal.
Based in Austin, Texas, Vista is a pioneer in software investing and manages more than $73 billion in assets across multiple strategies. A deal for Pluralsight would be the latest evidence that the firm is plowing ahead after Chief Executive Robert Smith admitted to criminal tax evasion in October and agreed to pay $139 million as part of a nonprosecution agreement.
Brian Sheth, Vista’s co-founder, president and lead deal-maker, left the firm in the wake of the settlement last month.
On Nov. 30, Vista said it was taking a majority stake in customer-relations-software company Gainsight Inc. in a deal that values the company at $1.1 billion. Earlier that month, it announced a majority investment in Pipedrive, another maker of customer-relations-management software, valuing it at $1.5 billion.
Qatalyst Partners is advising Pluralsight and Wilson Sonsini Goodrich & Rosati is legal counsel. For Vista, Morgan Stanley is financial adviser, with Kirkland & Ellis LLP serving as legal counsel.
Write to Cara Lombardo at [email protected] and Miriam Gottfried at [email protected]
Copyright ©2020 Dow Jones & Company, Inc. All Rights Reserved. 87990cbe856818d5eddac44c7b1cdeb8