Santa Monica investment firm Clearlake Capital recently announced that it will sell Brightly Software to Siemens in a whopping $1.88 billion deal that is expected to close in the second half of this year.
Under the definitive agreement, Brightly will be sold to the German conglomerate for $1.58 billion of upfront cash consideration, with the remaining $300 million sourced from cash earn-out payments.
Brightly is a software-as-a-service provider of cloud-based enterprise asset management and facility operations management. In a 2019 deal with private equity company Warburg Pincus, Clearlake acquired Brightly, formerly known as Dude Solutions. The acquisition was completed for slightly more than $500 million, marking a more than $1 billion return for Clearlake after three years of growing Brightly.
Kevin Kemmerer is the chief executive of Brightly Software and is an operating advisor for Clearlake’s software companies.
“We are thrilled by the progress made by Kevin and the Brightly team as the company has expanded to become a leading provider of enterprise asset management (software as a service) solutions across a broad range of applications, end-markets, and geographies,” Behdad Eghbali, Clearlake’s co-founder and managing partner, and Prashant Mehrotra, Clearlake’s managing director, said in a statement. “Over the past three years, we have transformed the operating expense structure of the business to enable efficient growth and significant profitability, while improving the quality of the Company’s revenue streams.”
Eghbali, along with Clearlake co-founder José Feliciano, was named to the Business Journal’s 2021 list of wealthiest Angelenos. Both were listed at No. 28 with a net worth of $3 billion.
Brightly expanded geographically and ventured into new end-markets during its time with Clearlake. It also developed and invested in new products such as solutions that focused on environmental, social and governance, and sustainability management. Much of the company’s customer base was transitioned to longer-term partnerships according to a statement. Four strategic acquisitions were also made by Brightly while it was under Clearlake’s investment.
“This is a very exciting day for Brightly as it represents an important milestone in the company’s history after going through a strategic transformation over the past few years under Clearlake’s guidance,” Kemmerer said in a statement. “Siemens’ acquisition of Brightly represents confidence in our ongoing plans to scale across end-markets and geographies, our ability to accelerate our market leadership position in enterprise asset management, and our goal to help our clients create more sustainable communities.”
An approximately 100% increase in annual recurring revenue and expansion in earnings before interest, taxes, depreciation, and amortization margins was also achieved by Brightly in the last three years. The North Carolina company now serves more than 12,000 clients in industries like manufacturing, health care, education and public infrastructure among other markets.
“Brightly will enable us to leapfrog to the next level of performance for buildings,” Matthias Rebellius, chief executive of Siemens Smart Infrastructure, said in a statement. “With seamless data exchange between our offerings, our customers can expect enhanced efficiency, lower downtimes and maintenance costs, shorter lifecycles, better data-driven decisions and more satisfied tenants.”
Rebellius added that the acquisition will speed up Siemens’ target of becoming a leading software company in infrastructure.
