News

Vista Equity Partners has agreed to acquire Starhome Mach from Fortissimo Capital. No financial terms were disclosed. When the deal closes, Vista will merge Starhome Mach with portfolio company Telarix. Starhome Mach is a provider of SaaS wholesale and retail roaming, clearing, settlement and fraud prevention technology.

PRESS RELEASE

VIENNA, Va.–(BUSINESS WIRE)–Starhome Mach, the leading global provider of SaaS wholesale and retail roaming, clearing, settlement and fraud prevention technology, today announced that its existing owner, Fortissimo Capital (“Fortissimo”) has entered into a definitive agreement to sell 100% of the company to Vista Equity Partners (“Vista”). Fortissimo is selling Starhome Mach after successfully working with management to build the business since it was acquired in 2012.

Vista’s simultaneous acquisition of Starhome Mach and merger with existing portfolio company Telarix brings together two leading software providers to the global telecommunications industry. The combination of Telarix and Starhome Mach creates the first and only end-to-end technology solution enabling telecommunication and mobile virtual network operators (“MVNOs”) to manage and optimize their partner relationships across the full spectrum of voice, SMS and data transactions and value-added solutions. The combined business will serve thousands of customers across over 130 countries globally.

“With this combination, Telarix and Starhome Mach will serve telecommunication carriers and service providers around the globe, playing a critical role in optimizing and enabling the efficient operations of global communications solutions for the retail, wholesale and interconnect markets,” said Telarix CEO Marco Limena. “As a single company, we will be able to provide more powerful, integrated and comprehensive solutions to enable a wide-range of carriers to successfully participate, compete, and partner within the global telecom ecosystem. I am excited to work with these two world class teams to continue to serve our combined customer bases.”

Telarix provides leading Interconnect Business Optimization solutions, including providing the industry’s de facto standard for enabling business-to-business relationships for the voice, SMS and data service markets and a full suite of products for routing, billing, settlement, trading, and fraud prevention to carriers worldwide. Telarix’s products are highly complementary to Starhome Mach’s end-to-end wholesale and retail roaming, clearing and settlement and fraud prevention solutions and services.

The combined company will be the only provider of carrier solutions able to manage both the roaming and interconnect markets, creating a unique opportunity for the development of advanced product solutions, cross-ecosystem insights and real-time analytics that build upon the combined data and capabilities of the respective platforms of both companies.

“Our customers, many of whom already use Telarix’s solutions, want a single suite of integrated solutions to help manage the complexities and solve the challenges carriers face in ensuring seamless, ubiquitous connectivity for their customers,” said Starhome Mach’s CEO, Itai Margalit. “Under Fortissimo’s ownership, we successfully implemented a long-term strategy which included the acquisition and integration of Mach, launched SaaS versions of our leading roaming and clearing platforms and introduced a variety of innovative solutions beyond our customers’ roaming needs including analytics, real-time anti-fraud and IOT. As we look forward to our next phase of growth, we are thrilled to become a part of the Vista family and joining with Telarix to be able to further accelerate our strategies to provide the unique, comprehensive solutions that clients are demanding.”

“We are excited to help bring together Telarix and Starhome Mach’s market leading platforms, customers and management teams to uniquely address the holistic technology needs of telecommunication carriers worldwide,” said Rob Rogers, Co-Head of Vista Foundation Fund and Principal at Vista Equity Partners. “The opportunity to leverage the data of the combined platforms to create powerful new solutions will help power global communications in an ever-increasing complex environment.”

The combined entity will be headquartered in Vienna, Virginia and be led by a combined management team with current Telarix Chief Executive Officer Marco Limena as CEO. The transaction, which is subject to customary closing conditions, is expected to close in the fourth quarter of 2018. Terms of the transaction have not been disclosed.

About Telarix
Telarix is the world’s leading provider of business-to-business and OSS/BSS management solutions to improve efficiency and productivity. The company’s iXLink B2B information exchange platform enables carriers to optimize operational capabilities across all areas of the business — from analytics, billing and settlement, and contract management to fraud protection, pricing and traffic routing. The platform provides carriers with an unprecedented level of visibility and control over interconnect voice, video, data and SMS services and is used by more than 4,000 communications companies across the globe. For more information, visit Telarix at www.telarix.com.

About Starhome Mach
Starhome Mach enables seamless innovative solutions that overcome the complex challenges of today’s digital transformation era to drive desired business performance. In 1999 Starhome Mach revolutionized the Mobile industry with the introduction of its groundbreaking international solutions. Today our comprehensive solutions portfolio includes B2B Settlement, Customer Engagement, Real Time Analytics, Fraud and Security, and IoT. With an exceptional customer base of more than 300 mobile network operators, including 24 leading telecom groups, we have unique access to core network data, can automatically analyze mass amounts of data, and take real-time actions that improve customer experience. For more information visit StarhomeMach.com.

About Vista Equity Partners
Vista Equity Partners, a U.S.-based investment firm with offices in Austin, San Francisco, Chicago, and Oakland, currently invests in software, data and technology-enabled organizations led by world-class management teams with long-term perspectives. Vista is a value-added investor, contributing professional expertise and multi-level support towards companies’ realization of their full potential. Vista’s investment approach is anchored by a sizable long-term capital base, experience in structuring technology-oriented transactions, and proven management techniques that yield flexibility and opportunity in private equity investing. For more information, please visit www.vistaequitypartners.com.

About Fortissimo Capital
Fortissimo Capital Fund is a leading private equity fund in Israel investing primarily in technology and industrial companies. Fortissimo takes an active approach and works with its portfolio companies on all aspects of their business fundamentals to build and facilitate sustainable long-term growth. For more information, please visit www.ffcapital.com.