Rogue Wave software acquires Fund IV portfolio co Akana Software

It has been a busy week on the M&A front for our 2012-vintage Fund IV portfolio, and more evidence of the value of Wellington’s non-amortizing growth capital to entrepreneurs and VCs alike.  Particularly in anticipation of an eventual exit.

No sooner had the news hit the wire that SintecMedia would be buying Operative (see prior post “SintecMedia to acquire Fund IV Portfolio co. Operative Media Inc. for ~US$200M” Nov. 29-16), Colorado-based Rogue Wave Software announced that it had acquired Akana (fka SOA Software, Inc.).

Akana is a Los Angeles-based provider of software solutions to help large enterprises manage their service-oriented architecture and application programming interfaces (API) products across their organizations. The solutions allow for platform-independent SOA governance and API management, which are critical elements that enable large customers to connect and control applications from multiple vendors and partners.  Think banks, for example.

Akana was founded in 1998, and was backed by Draper Fisher Jurvetson, Navigation Capital Partners (formerly Mellon Ventures), Paladin Capital Group, Palisades Ventures, and Redpoint Ventures.

Of note, we funded both the Operative and Akana growth capital financings within two weeks of each other in March of 2014. I guess it’s only appropriate that both acquisitions were announced during the same short period in late 2016.

Congratulations to Akana’s Board, VCs and management on the outcome.

MRM