We are pleased to share Vista’s monetization of Cvent following the close of its agreement to be taken private by Blackstone for $4.6 billion. As part of the transaction, Vista has invested a portion of its proceeds as non-convertible preferred stock in financing for the transaction.

Founded in 1999 and initially listed on the NASDAQ Stock Exchange in 2013 (NASDAQ: CVT), Cvent is a leading meetings, events and hospitality technology provider. After building an investment thesis around the company’s leading position in a large, growing and underpenetrated market, Vista acquired Cvent in 2016 via a take private transaction for a total enterprise value of $1.45 billion.

Cvent Founder and CEO Reggie Aggarwal had a lot of investor attention and various capital options when considering going private. He ultimately determined that Vista was the best choice for his company for what the Firm offered beyond capital to enable continuous innovation and long-term sustainable growth.

Upon acquisition, Vista merged Cvent with Lanyon Solutions, a leading provider of cloud-based software for managing corporate meetings, events and travel programs, and existing Vista portfolio company. Thus began a tactical scaling of the company which included seven add-on acquisitions resulting in significant product expansion and international market growth. Through Vista’s partnership, Cvent was opened to new talent and customer bases, establishing a presence in Australia, Germany and Singapore as well as expanding a thriving Center of Excellence in India.

Complementing M&A efforts was the upgrading of key technology platforms and integration of Vista Best Practices, empowering Cvent to develop leading Sales, Marketing, Client Services and Finance teams and processes to efficiently scale globally. In recognition of his ability to scale the organization while maintaining an exceptional corporate culture, Aggarwal was named the number one influential SaaS CEO by the SaaS Report in 2018 and 2019.

The COVID-19 pandemic brought in-person events to a crippling halt. Within days, Aggarwal and the leadership team activated all 4,000+ employees on building, launching and selling a new virtual solution. Within five months, Cvent launched its next generation virtual event platform. And within a year, Cvent established itself as a market leader in virtual event offerings. The pandemic provided a new, permanent growth vector in a post-COVID world as customers looked for a comprehensive platform to consolidate their tech stack for in-person, virtual and hybrid events. Cvent’s ability to seamlessly transform business operations while facing unprecedented market disruption highlights the criticality of enterprise software and resilience of SaaS subscription models in today’s economic environment. Combining this with Cvent’s executive leadership in partnership with Vista’s value creation team, Cvent has driven transformative change in the meetings and events ecosystem while scaling to new heights.

In December 2021, Vista helped Cvent return to public markets after completing its merger with Dragoneer’s Growth Opportunities Corp. II SPAC. This was a historic moment for both Cvent and Vista, marking Vista’s first de-SPAC transaction of a majority owned company and Cvent’s return to the public markets.

Vista’s investment in Cvent is a testament to the faith and support we show founders. We congratulate Reggie and the entire Cvent team on this exciting news and look forward to seeing what they accomplish next.