Black Billionaire Robert F. Smith Joins Partnership To Acquire Smartsheet For Nearly $8.4B

Black billionaire Robert F. Smith, the CEO and founder of Vista Equity Partners, is partnering with Blackstone to acquire Smartsheet.

Smartsheet is a modern enterprise work management platform used by companies worldwide. According to a news release, approximately 85% of 2024 Fortune 500 companies use the Smartsheet platform.

“For more than a decade, we have built a thriving community of employees, partners, and customers, each focused on building and benefiting from Smartsheet’s industry-leading work management platform. Our next phase of growth and customer success is underway. We look forward to partnering with Blackstone and Vista Equity Partners to accelerate our vision of modernizing work management for enterprises globally,” said Mark Mader, CEO of Smartsheet. 

Vista is a global investment firm with over $100 billion in assets under management as of March 31, 2024. The firm is known for exclusively investing in enterprise software, data, and technology-enabled businesses.

Blackstone is the world’s largest alternative asset manager that strives to deliver compelling returns for institutional and individual investors by strengthening the companies they choose to invest in.

“Modern enterprises rely on Smartsheet’s simple and scalable solutions to manage a diverse range of business-critical processes every single day because they enable seamless collaboration, enhanced productivity, and faster and more informed decision-making,” Monti Saroya, co-head of Vista’s Flagship Fund, and John Stalder, managing director at Vista, said in a joint statement.

“We look forward to partnering closely with Blackstone and Smartsheet to support its ambitious goal of making its platform accessible for every organization, team, and worker relying on collaborative work to achieve successful outcomes,” they added.  

Who Is Black Billionaire Robert F. Smith?

According to his website, Smith was born to two working-class parents in a predominantly Black, middle-class neighborhood in Denver. Giving back was instilled in him at an early age.

“Every month, for over 50 years, he watched [his parents] donate their limited resources to charities like United Negro College Fund (UNCF), no matter what was happening in their personal lives,” a statement reads on his website.

It’s clear that higher education was also a priority for Smith. He earned a degree in chemical engineering from Cornell University and later attended Columbia’s Business School. After graduating in 1994, he worked in investment banking on mergers and acquisitions at Goldman Sachs in New York City and later in San Francisco.

Smith launched Vista Equity Partners (Vista) in 2000, a leading global investment firm. Under his leadership, the firm’s portfolio includes some of the world’s leading enterprise software businesses.

Forbes reports Smith is worth $10.8 billion.

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