Thoma Bravo founder and managing partner Orlando Bravo said Thursday (Sept. 5) that while blockchain technology holds promise, he and his firm are avoiding companies and products in the space.
Bravo made the statement about three years after his private equity firm helped lead a $900 million investment in cryptocurrency exchange FTX, which later went bankrupt and whose founder, Sam Bankman-Fried, is now in prison, CNBC reported Thursday.
“I personally believe in blockchain. I think it’s a powerful way to do a lot of things and for a lot of use cases, and I’ve always believed in it,” Bravo told CNBC’s “Squawk on the Street” on Thursday. “From an investment perspective, once you make a mistake, you move on.”
Beyond that failed investment, Thoma Bravo has become a giant investor in the tech industry, the report said.
The company orchestrated the acquisitions of Proofpoint, RealPage, Anaplan and Coupa; achieved exits with the sales of Imperva and Barracuda Networks; and returned about $13 billion to its investors in 2023, according to the report.
Thoma Bravo sold cybersecurity company Imperva to French multinational Thales in July 2023 for $3.6 billion after acquiring the company in 2018 in a deal valued at $2.1 billion.
Patrice Caine, Thales CEO, said in a press release at the time: “With this acquisition, we are seizing a unique opportunity to accelerate our cybersecurity capabilities and taking an important step towards our ambition to build an integrated global cybersecurity player, offering a comprehensive portfolio of products and services. We have immense respect for Imperva’s innovative offerings in application and data security.”
Thoma Bravo bought Coupa, a corporate spend management company, in December 2022 for $8 billion, taking Coupa private.
Holden Spaht, managing partner of Thoma Bravo, said in a press release at the time: “Coupa has created and led the growth industry of enterprise spend management. We have followed the company’s success for many years and have been impressed by its consistent ability to deliver high levels of value to its global client base.”
The terms of the deal with Coupa reflect underlying demand for this cost-saving niche, PYMNTS reported in December 2022.
