CHARLOTTE, N.C. — Frontier Capital (“Frontier”), a leading growth equity firm focused exclusively on software and technology-enabled business services companies, is pleased to announce the exit of its investment in portfolio company Zephyr (“Zephyr” or the “Company”) through a sale to SmartBear Software (“SmartBear”).
Zephyr provides more than 18,000 organizations with a robust suite of test management applications. The Company’s software testing solutions enable development teams of all sizes to build higher quality software more efficiently and collaboratively. By adding Zephyr to its suite of software quality tools, SmartBear will create the industry’s most comprehensive set of test management solutions in the market.
Zephyr partnered with Frontier in 2016 to transform from an emerging growth software company to a recognized market leader in test management software. Through a collaborative partnership with Frontier, the Zephyr management team was able to make strategic investments and execute on its growth initiatives of expanding its product capabilities and launching in new end markets. Complementing Zephyr’s organic growth, with Frontier’s guidance, management successfully completed a strategic tuck-in acquisition as well.
“We are proud of the transformative growth that Zephyr has achieved during our partnership,” said Frontier Partner Scott Hoch, who led the Frontier investment team. “It has been our privilege to work with Zephyr CEO Scott Johnson and Founder Samir Shah, along with the entire team at Zephyr, to help build a durable platform company with strategic value that is exceptionally well positioned to continue its growth trajectory as part of SmartBear.”
“Frontier has been a true growth partner throughout our relationship,” said Scott Johnson. “With its deep experience in growth-stage software investing, Frontier was invaluable in helping us refine our go-to-market strategy, launch new products, and enhance our value proposition for our customers. Their guidance and leadership enabled a great outcome.”
William Blair and Womble Bond Dickinson acted as exclusive financial advisor and legal representative, respectively. Terms of the transaction were not disclosed.
Additional Resources:
Frontier Blog Post: https://frontiercapital.com/blog/frontier-capital-announces-exit-from-zephyr-test-management
Zephyr Announcement: https://www.getzephyr.com/buzz/press-releases/smartbear-acquires-zephyr
About Zephyr
Zephyr provides the world’s most widely used software test management solutions, powering more than 18,000 customers and 5 million users across 100 countries. Zephyr is leading the global transformation toward DevOps and Continuous Testing Agility through widely-adopted advanced quality management, automation and analytics tools. Leading product and IT teams in finance, healthcare, media, mobile, IT services and enterprise leverage the Zephyr family of products to keep pace with accelerating software delivery lifecycles. Dedicated to helping organizations spend less time testing and more time building, Zephyr launched the first testing solution natively inside Jira nearly a decade ago. Today, companies and teams of all sizes rely on Zephyr’s end-to-end solutions, unmatched scalability and support to move from ideas to impact with increasing velocity and ease. Zephyr is headquartered in San Jose, Calif., with regional offices in Philadelphia, Europe and India.
About SmartBear Software
Supporting more than six million software professionals and over 22,000 companies in 194 countries, SmartBear is the leader in software quality tools for teams. The company’s products help deliver the highest quality and best performing software possible while helping teams ship code at nearly impossible velocities. With products for API testing, UI testing, code review and performance monitoring across mobile, web and desktop applications, SmartBear equips every development, testing and operations team member with the tools to ensure quality at every stage of the software cycle. For more information, visit: smartbear.com, or for the SmartBear community, go to: LinkedIn, Twitter or Facebook.
About Frontier Capital
Frontier Capital is a Charlotte-based growth equity firm focused exclusively on software and technology-enabled business services companies. Founded in 1999, Frontier partners with management teams that can benefit from capital to accelerate growth, fund acquisitions or generate shareholder liquidity. The firm makes minority and majority equity investments in high-growth companies. For more information, please visit www.frontiercapital.com or follow Frontier on LinkedIn.
View source version on businesswire.com: https://www.businesswire.com/news/home/20181023005450/en/
Contacts
MiddleM Creative, on behalf of Frontier Capital
Kristin Steele, 704-879-1754
kristin@middlemcreative.com