Turn/River Capital to Acquire SolarWinds for $4.4 Billion

SolarWinds has announced its agreement to be acquired by Turn/River Capital for $4.4 billion, marking a significant move just six years after the IT management software company entered the public market. The leadership at SolarWinds views this strategic acquisition as a pathway to deepen its commitment to operational resilience amidst the growing demands from cloud and artificial intelligence technologies.

According to the Austin, Texas-based company, the acquisition will not only allow SolarWinds to innovate more rapidly but also enhance its focus on customer success through the development of impactful technological solutions. “We now look forward to partnering with Turn/River to deliver operational resilience solutions for our customers on our SolarWinds Platform, leveraging our premier observability, monitoring, and service desk solutions,” commented Sudhakar Ramakrishna, the President and CEO of SolarWinds.

The terms of the deal, which include a purchase price of $18.50 per share, are expected to finalize in the second quarter of 2025. This figure represents a 35% premium over the average closing price of SolarWinds’ stock over the past three months. Following the announcement, SolarWinds’ share price saw a significant uptick, rising 21.82% to $18.31 per share, the highest value since late 2021. After a public offering in October 2018 that netted $375 million and valued the company at approximately $4.6 billion, this acquisition signals a strategic retreat back into the private equity realm.

Despite being a public company, 65% of SolarWinds’ outstanding shares are held by private equity firms, Thoma Bravo and Silver Lake, who have provided their approval for the transaction through written consent. Notably, Thoma Bravo and Silver Lake previously took SolarWinds private in 2016, investing $4.5 billion following nearly seven years of public trading.

Turn/River’s Reach in Cybersecurity

While SolarWinds is primarily recognized for its capabilities in database observability, IT service management, and monitoring, the company also offers a suite of security products. These include an access rights manager, a security information and event management (SIEM) platform, and self-hosted observability tools. Additionally, SolarWinds delivers a vulnerability and risk dashboard, security summary dashboard, and simplified access management features across systems like Active Directory and SharePoint.

Turn/River Capital has maintained a modest footprint in the cybersecurity sector, having invested in specific vendors such as Invicti in 2017 and Netsparker in 2018. Invicti emerged following the merger of Netsparker and Acunetix, and in October 2021, the company secured $625 million from Summit Partners. Turn/River also invested in data loss prevention specialist CoSoSys in early 2020, which was eventually acquired by Netwrix in early 2024. Their most notable recent acquisition was the $570 million purchase of Tufin, a network security vendor based in Boston.

Previously, during its tenure as a publicly traded entity, SolarWinds faced a security crisis when Russian hackers compromised a software update, embedding malware within the company’s Orion application. This incident affected less than 100 clients, disproportionately impacting at least nine federal agencies. Such vulnerabilities highlight the significant cybersecurity risks that persist in today’s digital landscape.