Rubicon Technology Partners - 2025 Perspectives
Looking for perspectives on Rubicon Technology Partners (mid-market enterprise software fund based in Boulder, CO) from folks who work / have worked at the fund. Any and all anecdotes welcome, trying to learn more on the below topics:
- General Working Style / Culture: Do junior employees like working there? Team-oriented vs. every person for themselves?
- Fund Performance: How have/are the last funds performing (latest fund raised at $1.7B in 2022/2023)? Any issues being able to raise/grow fund size in the future?
- Career-Opportunity: Is this a place you can get promoted long-term? Do the founding partners control everything?
Compensation: What are comp levels for ASO/Senior ASO/VP? How does comp compare to T1 markets (NYC/SF)? Any carry or co-invest components?
I'm curious too. Outside in, it looks like they did very well Funds I-II in the lower middle market, and then moved up market in fund size right as the market was topping out. Probably paid some high prices for smaller SaaS businesses and got burned. Anyone have any intel corroborating this? Pitchbook snip below:
TIL a 14% IRR and 1.6x net in a great environment is good. QQQ smashed this in the same time period.
I think they're pretty smart. Not many exits yet but signals are good -- Aucerna to Thoma was a great deal, just raised a huge continuation vehicle for Cin7.
I put them in the same bucket as like a Riverside or Accel-KKR, where they're tech-focused but have a boring / low-growth enough profile that their portfolio shouldn't be super high beta. That said some recent deals are looking a little more growthy (e.g. partnered with Silversmith on Ascend) so that profile could be changing.
Think they're smart individuals and like their ethos, but they paid huge prices for some tough businesses a few years back and believe they're struggling a bit because of it. They do also have a few very good businesses, so if they can hit some homers at exit they'll probably be fine, but still a bit that remains to be seen.
Bumping for any additional perspectives
I'd agree on them paying up for more growth-oriented SaaS companies, not just during peak market cycle but even in '23 and '24. Saw a deal last year where they outbid my firm and remainder of competition materially for a SaaS business where they had strong conviction in the end market and loved the founder
Culturally, I know somebody there and they absolutely love their life. Very outdoorsy person at VP level and seems they have WLB you could only dream of. From what I've heard it's a more friendly, collaborative, and collegial culture
Do not think this is accurate re: WLB. It is sweaty, at least at the associate level I can confirm.
Yeah look at how many addons they've done for their PortCos.. doing good software addons (not slapped together holdcos) can be just as much work as the original platform deal. It's a ton of work to do this strategy well (and they seem to do it well) so WLB will not be great.
Definitely not accurate on WLB. Previously worked there and can confirm that very few folks (outside of the partners, principals, and accounting team) were doing anything besides work on the weekend
I recently heard from a former employee it is sweaty; free weekends are very rare
One of the Partners there helped me out a lot when I was early in my career / looking to break into finance. Good guy.
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