Thoma Bravo to Buy Coupa Software for $8B

Investment firm Thoma Bravo is buying business spend management firm Coupa Software for $8 billion.

The deal, announced Monday (Dec. 12), makes Coupa a privately held company and comes amid what PYMNTS has called an era of greenfield opportunities for business spend management (BSM) companies.

“Coupa has created and led the large and growing business spend management category,” Holden Spaht, a Thoma Bravo managing partner, said in a news release. “We’ve followed the company’s success for many years and have been impressed by its consistent track record of delivering high levels of value for its global customer base.”

Research by PYMNTS found that just 55% of B2B Software-as-a-Service (SaaS) firms use spend management technology.

Eighty-four percent the businesses surveyed said they would be at least somewhat inclined to use them. Of that group, nine out of 10 said they would be at least somewhat willing to pay for the technology.

Bigger firms and those that provide content management systems were the most likely to use a non-payroll spend management system. As to the expectations for how long it takes to put this all into practice: Most SaaS firm executives surveyed reported that their accounts payable (AP) teams typically can master a new software solution within a month.

The news follows reports last month that Coupa Software was considering a sale to private equity investor Vista Equity.

Vista is known for taking growing tech companies under its wing, and bought software-security firm KnowBe4 in October for $4.6 billion.

This year has seen Thoma Bravo acquire cybersecurity companies SailPoint Technologies for $6.9 billion and Ping Identity for $2.8 billion. The investment firm considered buying the British cybersecurity Darktrace but ultimately abandoned the idea in September.

The company, which has more than $120 billion in assets under management, also expressed interest in matching Elon Musk’s bid for Twitter soon after the multibillionaire expressed interest in buying the social media platform in the spring.