Goodwin’s Private Equity team advised Bregal Sagemount, Great Hill Partners and their jointly owned portfolio company, Network Merchants, LLC (NMI) in connection with a substantial investment in NMI from Francisco Partners, a global technology-focused private equity fund. The majority investment will provide NMI with new capital to drive product innovation and expansion of its enablement capabilities. As part of this transaction, Bregal Sagemount will be exiting its investment in the company and existing investor Great Hill Partners will remain a significant shareholder. Financial terms were not disclosed.
The deal team was led by partners AJ Weidhaas and Jared Spitalnick, and included counsel Joseph Bernardi and associates Matt Cognetti and Jake Herman (Private Equity), as well as assistance from partner Bill Weiss and associate Todd Pollock (Tax), partner Will Pearce (Debt Finance), associate Steve Argentieri (Intellectual Property), and partner Jim Mattus (Antitrust).
NMI provides payments enablement technology that empowers ISOs, VARs, ISVs and payment facilitators to offer branded payment gateway services without building or maintaining their own technology.
Sagemount is a growth-focused private capital firm with $1.7 billion in committed capital. Founded in 2012, the firm provides flexible capital and strategic assistance to market-leading companies in high-growth sectors across a wide variety of transaction situations. Sagemount invests $8 million to $150 million per transaction into both control and non-control positions, and will make equity and/or junior debt investments. Targeted sectors include software, digital infrastructure, healthcare IT services, business and consumer services, and financial technology / specialty finance.
Great Hill is a Boston-based private equity firm that has raised over $5 billion in commitments since inception to finance the acquisition, recapitalization, or expansion of growth companies in the communications, financial technology, healthcare, information services, internet, media, retail, consumer and software industries. Great Hill targets investments of $25 million to $200 million.
For additional details on the transaction, please read the press release.