We are pleased to share that we have successfully realized a portion of our investment in PowerSchool following our previously announced agreement with Bain Capital to take the company private at total enterprise value of $5.6 billion. As part of the transaction, Vista has invested a portion of its proceeds and will remain a minority investor in the business.

PowerSchool is a leading provider of cloud-based software for K-12 education, helping educators, administrators, parents and students connect, collaborate and improve student outcomes. Vista initially acquired PowerSchool in 2015 via a carveout transaction from Pearson. Vista initially acquired PowerSchool in 2015 via a carveout transaction from Pearson. Having strong conviction in the management team and the go-forward growth opportunity, we reinvested in PowerSchool in 2018 in a concurrent merger with PeopleAdmin and partnership with Onex, and later took the company public in 2021 at a valuation of approximately $3.5 billion.

At the time of Vista’s initial investment in 2015, PowerSchool was solely a student information system (SIS) with a large, loyal customer base composed of over 13,000 K-12 organizations within the United States and Canada, contributing approximately $97 million in revenues and $20 million of operating income to Pearson. Since then, PowerSchool has transformed into one of the most comprehensive K-12 education software suites available on the market, serving more than 50 million students in over 90 countries.

Our investment in PowerSchool exemplifies the power of Vista’s Best Practices across many critical functional areas. Shortly after Vista’s acquisition, PowerSchool appointed software industry veteran and previous Vista portfolio company executive Hardeep Gulati as CEO. Under Gulati’s expert leadership, the company executed a disciplined blend of organic and inorganic strategic initiatives aimed at enabling profitable growth at scale.

This includes a relentless focus on product innovation and engineering execution. These efforts were on full display at Vista’s 2023 Global Hackathon, the firm’s annual portfolio-wide innovation competition which seeks to advance commercially viable solutions with a focus on generative AI. PowerSchool’s team of engineers and developers won the top prize for “Best Overall” solution for developing PowerBuddy™, a conversational AI-powered assistant that provides personalized support for students, teachers, parents and school administrators. PowerSchool began commercializing PowerBuddy™ across its platform in early 2024.

PowerSchool has also been one of the most acquisitive companies in the Vista portfolio and has a proven track record of sourcing, executing and integrating both tuck-in and scaled acquisitions. Since Vista’s initial investment, the company has completed 18 add-on transactions, including the recent acquisitions of SchoolMessenger, NeverSkip and Allovue which further broadened PowerSchool’s platform and geographic reach.

PowerSchool is a prime example of how Vista’s differentiated approach can identify, operationalize and capture significant value by supporting market-leading software solutions catering to rapidly digitalizing sectors of the global economy such as K-12 education. The investment also reflects how the emergence of new technology like generative AI is poised to create new and compelling growth opportunities across the enterprise software industry moving forward.

We extend our gratitude to the PowerSchool team for their dedication and hard work, which have been instrumental in achieving this milestone, and we look forward to witnessing PowerSchool’s continued success.