ConnectWise

A consortium led by growth-equity firm Bregal Sagemount acquired a majority stake in February 2025, per Bloomberg reporting. Thoma Bravo retained a minority interest in the business. The transaction valued ConnectWise at more than $8 billion and left CEO Jason Magee and the existing operating team in place to continue running the asset.

ConnectWise operates in a concentrated market where most relevant targets — cybersecurity add-ons, backup and disaster-recovery tools, service-desk AI — are well-known to the management team because they compete or integrate with the existing platform. Thoma Bravo historically surfaced targets from its portfolio and a broad network of sell-side bankers; under new majority owners, the playbook is expected to continue, with an emphasis on tuck-in acquisitions that extend the suite without requiring separate sales teams.

ConnectWise is a private operating company, not a family office. It was originally founder-owned by Arnie Bellini, went through a private equity recap with Thoma Bravo in 2019, and transitioned to a consortium-led majority ownership in 2025. No part of the firm operates as a family-office investment vehicle.

The firm itself sits at the growth-to-mature stage in private equity hands. As a platform asset, ConnectWise is the vehicle into which sponsors tuck smaller, often bootstrapped or early-growth companies (such as Perch Security) to accelerate product-line expansion. The model is buy-and-build, not venture, and the sponsors target cash-flow positive targets that can be integrated into the larger subscription bundle.

ConnectWise focuses narrowly on managed-service-provider tooling — PSA, RMM, cybersecurity operations for IT channel partners. It has not expanded into adjacent enterprise IT service management (ITSM) platforms, general ERP, or direct-to-consumer software. The firm avoids taking product-market risk outside the MSP distribution channel, which is the source of its structural retention advantage.

Under Thoma Bravo and now under the Bregal Sagemount consortium, the operating company maintains its own C-suite led by CEO Jason Magee. The board is sponsor-appointed, but day-to-day product, R&D, and go-to-market decisions sit with the executive team in Tampa. Historical precedent from comparable Thoma Bravo platform exits suggests the new group will maintain a similar governance firewall, with sponsor involvement concentrated at the capital-allocation and M&A level.

As an operating company, ConnectWise does not co-invest alongside general partners in the traditional alternative-asset sense. It is itself a portfolio company. Any co-investment discussions would occur at the sponsor level among the limited partners in the Bregal Sagemount-led vehicle, and those terms are not public.