Francisco Partners history

Among its notable early investments, in 2000 the firm paid $375 million in cash to purchase 90% of Advanced Micro Devices' communications products division.

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.

The firm purchased NPTest in 2003, the semiconductor-testing unit of Schlumberger, and by the following year Francisco Partners had more than 30 active portfolio companies.

Francisco Partners purchased Smart Modular from the Solectron Corporation in 2004, with Smart Modular going public two years later.

In 2006 the company led a leveraged buyout of Metrologic Instruments, which makes laser and holographic-based scanners, and also purchased WatchGuard.

The firm invested in Paymetric in 2013, selling the company to Vantiv in Atlanta, Georgia four years later.

The firm completed raising about $2.9 billion for its fourth fund in 2015.

Francisco joined with Elliott Management in June 2016 to buy the SonicWall and Quest Software subsidiaries from Dell as part of the spinoff of Dell Software.

Also in 2018, Blackstone’s Strategic Capital Group and Goldman Sachs’ Petershill program acquired a minority stake in Francisco Partners.

On September 30, 2019, Francisco Partners announced its intent to acquire Orchard Software Corporation, a privately owned company specializing in medical laboratory software.

The acquisition completed on December 1, 2020.

Also in early 2021, Francisco Partners acquired MyHeritage for a reported 600 million dollars.