News

Genstar Capital has agreed to acquire Austin-based Drillinginfo, a software, data, and analytics platform for the energy value chain. No financial terms were disclosed. At the losing of the deal, Insight Venture Partners will retain a “significant” minority stake in Drillinginfo.

PRESS RELEASE

SAN FRANCISCO, June 19, 2018 – Genstar Capital, a leading private equity firm focused on investments in targeted segments of the software, industrial technology, healthcare, and financial services industries, today announced the signing of a definitive agreement to acquire Drilling Info Holdings, Inc. a portfolio company of Insight Venture Partners. Upon closing of the transaction, Genstar will become the new majority shareholder of the business, with Insight Venture Partners retaining a significant minority stake.

Drillinginfo is the leading software, data, and analytics platform for the energy value chain. The Drillinginfo platform is powered by an ever-expanding, industry-leading dataset derived from public and proprietary energy industry sources and delivered through a SaaS platform providing decision support insights to exploration and production companies, oilfield services companies, electrical power companies, and other commodity market and capital market participants. Notably, the single instance platform is unique in serving most operational silos within these various entities and across all market sizes, from the world’s largest companies to its very smallest. The company serves over 3,500 customers in 50 countries and has over 45,000 named users. Headquartered in Austin, TX, Drillinginfo has over 675 employees across 13 offices.

Eli Weiss, Managing Director of Genstar, said, “Our investment focus in the software sector is to identify companies with market-leading technologies operating in dynamic growth markets. As with our earlier successful partnerships, we will provide the additional investment capital and resources to further broaden Drillinginfo’s customer relationships and execute their growth strategy. Drillinginfo’s focus on the world’s largest vertical market, the energy industry, brings ample opportunity for future growth. We will aggressively identify key acquisition and growth opportunities that will consolidate data onto the existing platform, broaden Drillinginfo’s product mix, expand its geographic footprint, and accelerate entry into adjacent market segments. We look forward to driving accelerated growth to build Drillinginfo’s future.”

Jeff Hughes, CEO & President of Drillinginfo, said, “Our growth is attributed to the unmatched quality of our products combined with an unwavering focus on the customer and supported by our incredibly talented team of people. We are now doing a better job than ever of serving customers as large as supermajors and as small as sole proprietors. We will continue to expand our range of product technologies to support our customers’ growing needs anywhere in the world. Genstar has a deep understanding of SaaS platforms like ours and we look forward to working together to further expand our suite of product offerings in areas important to our customers.”

Geoff Miller, Director of Genstar, said, “We are excited to partner with Jeff and Drillinginfo’s senior leadership team in this exciting new chapter for the company. Every day Drillinginfo delivers value to almost every kind of user in the energy sector from geoscientists to commodity traders, they’re helping them be more productive together. Nobody else in the market does this. We see numerous opportunities to build the business and we plan to drive growth with a focus on expanding service offerings through selective acquisitions to enhance its industry-leading data and energy analytics solutions.”

“It has been a privilege to work alongside Allen, Jeff and the rest of the executive team as they’ve driven Drillinginfo to be the SaaS analytics and data leader in the oil and gas industry,” said Deven Parekh, Managing Director at Insight Venture Partners. “We look forward to continuing our relationship and partnering with Eli, Geoff, and the Genstar team in this next phase of growth.”

Drillinginfo has successfully completed over 10 acquisitions to further strengthen its business. Recently, Drillinginfo announced the acquisition of PLS, Inc.’s research and database business and 1Derrick, two highly-visible companies in the oil and gas industry that offer services for sourcing, valuing and analyzing asset transactions.

About Drillinginfo
Drillinginfo delivers business-critical insights to the energy, power, and commodities markets. Its state-of-the-art SaaS platform offers sophisticated technology, powerful analytics, and industry-leading data. Drillinginfo’s solutions deliver value across upstream, midstream and downstream markets, empowering exploration and production (E&P), oilfield services, midstream, utilities, trading and risk, and capital markets companies to be more collaborative, efficient, and competitive. Drillinginfo delivers actionable intelligence over mobile, web, and desktop to analyze and reduce risk, conduct competitive benchmarking, and uncover market insights. Drillinginfo serves over 3,500 companies globally from its Austin, Texas, headquarters and has more than 675 employees. For more information visit drillinginfo.com.

About Genstar Capital
Genstar Capital (www.gencap.com) is a leading private equity firm that has been actively investing in high quality companies for more than 25 years. Based in San Francisco, Genstar works in partnership with its management teams and its network of strategic advisors to transform its portfolio companies into industry-leading businesses. Genstar currently has $9.7 billion of assets under management and targets investments focused on targeted segments of the software, industrial technology, healthcare, and financial services industries.

About Insight Venture Partners
Insight Venture Partners (www.insightpartners.com) is a leading global venture capital and private equity firm investing in high-growth software companies that are driving transformative change in their industries. Founded in 1995, Insight has raised more than $18 billion and invested in over 300 companies worldwide. Insight’s mission is to find, fund and work successfully with visionary executives, providing them with practical, hands-on growth expertise to foster long-term success.