CollabNet VersionOne today announced it has picked up an additional $500 million in funding to help fuel what is rapidly becoming an arms race to drive adoption of value stream management in DevOps environments. TPG Capital, the private equity arm of TPG, signed a definitive agreement to acquire CollabNet VersionOne. Terms of the acquisition were not disclosed, but TPG pledged to invest up to $500 million to take value stream management to the next level.
CollabNet VersionOne CEO Flint Brenton said part of the funding will be used to fuel both organic and inorganic investments in value stream management, a rapidly growing segment of the IT market that is just now coming into its own. Value stream management represents a holistic effort to align application development and delivery with strategic business objectives. In effect, IT leaders are now looking to apply advanced analytics to determine how a delay to one aspect of a development project might impact the revenue goals of the business.
Brenton said now that more organizations are viewing themselves as software companies that make a product or deliver a service, they need tools to manage application development projects in much the same way software companies operate. Rather than building those tools, many of those companies are looking to vendors such as CollabNet VersionOne to provide those tools within a unified platform.
CollabNet VersionOne is, of course, not the only IT vendor pursuing that opportunity. However, rather than viewing value stream management as an extension of a specific development platform, CollabNet VersionOne is pursuing an approach that makes it possible for an organization to manage software investments across multiple platforms.
Brenton said organizations should expect CollabNet VersionOne to focus on value stream management. As part of that focus, the company will look to fill in gaps in its portfolio by investing in product development, partnering with providers of complementary applications such as providers of business intelligence (BI) tools or acquiring smaller companies.
In effect, there is now an arms race underway when it comes to building the next generation of value stream management platforms. Much of the investments in this area will be focused squarely on advanced analytics infused with machine and deep-learning algorithms that will enable organizations to begin applying artificial intelligence (AI) to the management of software delivery.
It’s not clear to what degree CollabNet VersionOne may one day be a target for acquisition itself as the entire DevOps vendor community continues to consolidate. As DevOps processes increasingly are embraced by enterprise IT organizations, many vendors are concluding they need to “go big or go home.” In fact, Brenton noted the acquisition of CollabNet VersionOne was initiated by TPG Capital, which was looking to find an attractive investment in the DevOps sector.
It may be a little while longer before every enterprise has mastered the nuances of value stream management, but the one thing that is clear is there will be no shortage of options as investment dollars continue to pour in.
