Interview with Orlando Bravo, Founder and Managing Partner - Thoma Bravo

In this interview, Orlando Bravo, a partner at Thoma Bravo, discusses the firm’s history and its role as a pioneer in buyout in North America. Since the early 2000s, Thoma Bravo has specialized in acquiring B2B software companies, with a strategy focused on high-quality recurring revenue, operational improvements, and industry consolidation.The software sector is often cited as particularly well-suited to private equity. Software companies typically benefit from high gross margins, recurring revenue, strong renewal rates, and protected intellectual property. These characteristics make for solid business models capable of generating cash flow and offering significant opportunities for value creation.Thoma Bravo has grown by acquiring best-in-class software companies—often unprofitable at the time of acquisition—and then improving their profitability, organization, and strategic positioning. This approach relies on deep industry specialization, dedicated teams for each software segment, and long-term monitoring of target companies. The interview illustrates this method through several landmark transactions. Compuware helped Dynatrace emerge as a major player in software infrastructure, while Adenza—formed through the merger of AxiomSL and Calypso—was sold to Nasdaq after generating significant value. These examples demonstrate Thoma Bravo’s ability to transform software assets into large-scale strategic platforms. Orlando Bravo also emphasizes that the software buyout market buyout undergone profound changes. Initially relying on little debt financing, it has become a major segment of private equity, driven by the growth of software-as-a-service, the appetite of strategic buyers, and the expansion of private credit. Finally, artificial intelligence is presented as a powerful growth driver for established software companies. Software companies with proprietary data, strong customer relationships, and specific industry expertise could benefit significantly from this new phase of technological transformation.