Contact: Brenon Daly, Peter Christy
Adding a second company to its portfolio, private equity (PE) firm Lone Rock Technology Group has picked up network analytics firm Packet Design. The acquisition of Packet Design brings the Austin, Texas-based PE shop much closer to its roots in networking than its other investment, business process automation vendor iGrafx.
Lone Rock was cofounded by Joel Trammel, who spent a decade as head of network flow monitor NetQoS before selling that business to CA Technologies for $200m in September 2009. A number of former NetQoS executives are now working at Packet Design, including the company’s newly appointed CEO Scott Sherwood, who ran sales at NetQoS. Packet Design was advised in the process by Mooreland Partners, while Northside Advisors worked the buyside. (Subscribers to The 451 M&A KnowledgeBase can click here for the full record on the transaction, including our proprietary estimate on the terms of the deal.)
In its decade in business, Packet Design pulled in about $65m in equity and debt backing. Like many other startups, however, it was heavy on technical expertise but light on business acumen. Packet Design sold elegant technical tools to a few of the most complex network operators but never truly expanded into much larger markets. The company has about 200 customers and, according to our understanding, roughly $10m in sales.
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