Hg to acquire AuditBoard for $3 billion

Now, just when it seemed like the IPO pipeline had finally reopened, yet another tech company is choosing to stay private. But that still means a big payday for shareholders. Dear Tribosa is here to explain in today's Tech Check. Hi Deirdre. Hey Kelly. So here's the news. Risk and compliance software startup Auto Board has agreed to be bought by UK based private equity firm for $3 billion. There's lots to unpack here. I just spoke exclusively to Audit Board CEO Scott Arnold, who told me that he and his board found the PE offer fair and attractive. He doesn't actually see the IPO market as particularly open at the moment. It's also a great exit for its VC investors when still there aren't a ton of companies topping public markets. We gave you the comparison on your screen there, what it's sold for versus what it was last valued at. I asked Arnold if he was leaving something on the table, though, by foregoing an IPO, since listings have traditionally been seen as important marketing events. I think that's the old way of thinking. In our case, we have six of the Fortune 10 and 50% of the Fortune 500 is our customers already. We have over 2000 customers today. So people know about us. There's always an opportunity to have more people know about us, but we would say that that has less of a benefit maybe compared to what it would have done 10 years ago. And guys, this is such an interesting narrative violation, one that is increasingly common among the tech CEOs and founders that I talked to here. They see the benefit in building in private and you even see some public companies going the reverse route like Squarespace, which recently did. A $7 billion go private deal with PE firm Premiera. But I think one thing is clear guys, is that an IPO is sort of changing in founders mind. It's now not the only thing the essential milestone. There's other ways to build your business. And for private equity, Deirdre, of course, it's also been struggling in an era of higher rates and that that kind of exit, that IPO exit being closed, but they can always do deals amongst themselves. Yeah, absolutely. And I think you think about private equity as typically like coming in and cleaning up a balance sheet, cutting costs. But more and more, you see them sort of as investors and opportunistic and kind of blurring the lines between private equity and venture capital. Yeah, that's a great point, Deirdre. Thank you very much. Our Deirdre Bosa.