- Climb Advisor's M&A Weekly
- Posts
- Climb's M&A Weekly: Apax, Vista, and Life360 all feature
Climb's M&A Weekly: Apax, Vista, and Life360 all feature
Apax buys Finastra from Vista and Life360 makes investment in Aura
Nick @ Climb
May 25, 2025
Welcome back to the Climb Advisors weekly newsletter with five deals from across the B2B tech landscape.
Climb Advisors focuses on sell-side advisory for B2B Software and services companies generating $5m-$15m in revenue. We also advise on credit solutions for companies of the same profile & in select cases engage in retained buy-side processes for quality buyers. We love to talk markets and make introductions - please don’t hesitate to reach out if you’re a founder or investor looking to transact.
Apax Partners purchase the capital markets business of Finastra from Vista
Overview: An Apax affiliate buys the treasury and capital markets (TCM) business of Finastra, a provider of financial software applications. The TCM business unit serves over 340 financial institutions and will operate as a standalone business after the deal is completed. TCM provides these institutions with risk management, regulatory compliance, and capital markets operations. Read more here.
Climb Comment: Vista created Finastra in 2017 when it took D+H Corp private and merged it with Misys. In recent months, Vista has put the TCM business up for auction with Apax winning the deal for a rumored $2 billion. What was expected to be a busy year for dealmaking hasn’t quite been realized with tariff uncertainty being the theme across markets in 2025. However, sectors that aren’t really affected by tariffs, like financial software, are seeing solid deal volume. We recently wrote about KKR buying OSTTRA from S&P Global and CME Group and here is another deal in the rapidly growing financial software space.
Recurly acquires Prive and Redfast
Overview: Recurly, a subscription management platform, acquires Prive, a Shopify subscription platform, and Redfast, a subscriber engagement tool. Recurly now fully integrates billing, payments, analytics, and subscriber engagement into one platform. This all-in-one capability should drive retention and more focused personalization for subscribers. Read more here.
Climb Comment: Five years ago Recurly attracted a majority investment from Accel-KKR due to its tremendous growth and future outlook. Five years later, Recurly, with Accel-KKR’s backing, is developing an all-in-one solution platform, something customers are increasingly putting a premium on. Prive will be rebranded as Recurly Commerce and will focus on physical goods subscriptions, a market expected to reach $1 trillion by 2028. Redfast will rebrand as Recurly Engage and will focus on predicting churn and increasing retention among Recurly customers.
Life360 makes investment into Aura
Overview: Life360, a family connection and safety application, invests $25 million into Aura, an AI-powered online safety solution. This partnership provides Aura the right to sell Life360 as a bundled solution. Aura will also have the opportunity to market directly to Life360’s existing customers through its platform. Read more here.
Climb Comment: Life360 partnering with Aura and its AI capabilities looks like a fantastic fit for both companies. Life360 is a safety and security app that is very popular among parents trying to keep an eye on their kids’ whereabouts. Aura utilizes AI to protect its users from hackers, identity thieves, and the dark web. By bundling the two together, users can now have a comprehensive safety solution protecting against real-world threats and cyber threats.
New Mountain Capital combines portfolio companies to form Smarter Technologies
Overview: New Mountain Capital is combining three of its portfolio companies to create a new standalone company, Smarter Technologies. The portfolio companies are Access Healthcare, Thoughtful.ai, and SmarterDx. Smarter Technologies will be an AI-powered healthcare solution designed to automate hospitals’ workflows. Read more here.
Climb Comment: Access Healthcare is a revenue cycle management (RCM) company; Thoughtful.ai is an RCM platform using AI agents and tools; and SmarterDx uses clinical AI for revenue integrity. Together, these three companies form New Mountain Capital’s largest investment to date. New Mountain Capital has been very active in healthcare with its acquisition of Machinify and its investment in the merger of Datavant and Ciox Health. AI is being used in drug discovery, patient diagnosis and treatment, and a range of back office use cases, creating a rapidly evolving medical landscape.
Boomi, backed by a couple PE firms, acquires Thru
Overview: Boomi, an AI-driven automation platform backed by Francisco Partners and TPG Capital, acquires Thru, a file management transfer solution. Boomi and Thru have long been partners, with this acquisition allowing Boomi to expand its file-based integration capabilities. Boomi now has a cloud native platform that manages data across applications and files. Read more here.
Climb Comment: Boomi wants to commoditize AI agents and believes it can be helpful in all aspects of life. With the acquisition of Thru, Boomi expands from the world of just structured data, to unstructured data. This announcement came during a series of announcements at Boomi which includes the partnership with AWS and the roll out of 33,000 AI agents across its platforms.
Article of the week
This week we’re sharing an interview with Sir Chris Hohn. The founder of one of the most successful hedge funds of all time sits down and gives some detail into his investment strategy, which sectors he likes and doesn’t like, his philanthropic efforts, and more. This rare interview gives insight into his value investing strategy.
Thanks for following along & hope you found something useful or interesting. Please don’t hesitate to reach out if you’re considering a sale this year - we’re always glad to chat & share perspective.
All the best,
Nick