Carlyle exits Eggplant for $330m

Katharine Hidalgo
26 June 2020

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The Carlyle Group has sold software company Eggplant to Keysight Technologies for $330m.

Eggplant was in the portfolio of Carlyle Europe Technology Partners III, which closed on €656m in May 2015. The fund has made several realisations to date, including the sale of Evernex to 3i for more than €400m and the sale of Exocad to trade buyer Align Technology for approximately €376m.

US-based Keysight Technologies is a test and measurement equipment provider for electronic design and e-mobility.

Eggplant's customers span a range of sectors overlapping Keysight's existing customer base. The company will also expand software test opportunities into new end-markets, according to a statement. With the acquisition, Keysight intends to grow its product range in the automated software test market across the physical and protocol layers and into the application layers.

CEO John Bates will join the Keysight leadership team reporting to Soon-Chai Gooi, president of Keysight's Electronic Industrial Solutions Group.

Previous funding
London-based Seraphim led the company's first two funding rounds, first investing £1m in September 2008, followed by a further $500,000 in January 2009.

The Carlyle Group acquired it from venture capital firm Seraphim Capital in January 2016. The deal provided an exit for the firm, as Carlyle took a majority stake. Carlyle kept the company's existing management in place following the MBO and the GP expected to continue its growth trend, which saw it increase revenues tenfold over the prior five years, according to Unquote Data.

Company
Founded in 2008, Eggplant is a software test automation platform provider that uses artificial intelligence and analytics to automate test creation and test execution. Eggplant's digital automation intelligence platform can test any technology on any device, operating system or browser at any layer, from the user interface to application programming interfaces to the database. Eggplant had 2019 revenue of $38m and is headquartered in London.

People
Eggplant – John Bates (CEO).
Keysight Technologies - Ron Nersesian (chairman, CEO).