Francisco Partners

Not familiar with the the culture but Francisco is a force to be reckoned with in the software space.

• Probably the largest tech-exclusive fund today ($7.5bn) after the three megafunds - Vista, SL, Thoma ($16, $15, $12.6)
• Deals across the company lifecycle, from early-stage growth/"VC" (ZocDoc, Betterment) and late-stage growth (GoodRx) to mid-cap buyout (Orchard Software) and large-cap buyouts (LogMeIn with Elliott $4.3bn, Renaissance >$1.1bn, bought FROM H&F). They do several large cap deals and are in UMM on average. They will be in several auctions against Thoma and Vista.
• Invest in every technology sector - take a sector and they have likely invested in a technology/tech-enabled business in the space e.g. edtech, healthtech, insuretech; strong player in payments and vertical software (some of the hottest tech sectors)
• Today still fairly US-focused but likely to become more international with the fundraise. London office has expanded.
• Very growth-oriented with some major successes: Barracuda Networks, Mitel, PayMetric (5x MoM), PayLease

• Returns have not always been good but have improved and been stronger lately. They have clearly enamored LPs as part of the high-growth tech buyouts train (lots of demand for these funds - which has enabled them to raise three separate tech vehicles worth ~$10bn). (as of Q4 '18) 2000 Fund: 4.4% IRR, 2002 Fund: 8.5% IRR, 2006 Fund: 10.2% IRR, 2011 Fund: 20.6% IRR, 2015 Fund: 26.3% IRR (kinda funny how steadily the IRR has increased with every fund) https://www.copera.org/sites/default/files/documents/altinvest.pdf

• My understanding is they recruit heavily from the TMT IB groups, and are quite open to the major ones in SF/Menlo. Team is pretty much all in SF.