Fortissimo Capital scores $140 million from sales of Incredibuild shares

Israel-based private equity firm Fortissimo Capital has sold part of its shares of software company IncrediBuild Software Ltd. to Insight Partners for a tidy sum of $140 million. Calcalist has learned that Fortissimo is set to achieve a handsome return on its investment in the Israeli company that helps accelerate CPU processing times for developers, having invested in it when its valuation was only $35 million.

A significant part of the $140 million investment by Insight will acquire shares from Fortissimo and the remainder will be invested in the company to accelerate the expansion of U.S. operations and further propel innovation of the technology. Insight Partners’ managing directors Teddie Wardi and Lonne Jaffe, as well as senior associate Brad Fiedler, will be joining the company’s board. Following the completion of the deal, Insight Partners will become the controlling shareholder of Incredibuild.

“We have been profitable since the day we were founded. I recruited 40 people and I am still profitable. I plan to open an office in the U.S. and recruit 50 more team members and grow the company’s brand,” Tami Mazel Shachar, Incredibuild’s CEO told Calcalist.

The investment will help expand Incredibuild’s U.S. operations to meet the rapidly growing demand for its software development acceleration technology. The investment comes on the heels of a very profitable year for Incredibuild, which experienced a 55% increase in revenue in the past year as businesses seek the ability to build and ship software versions faster without compromising on quality.

“Fortissimo acquired Incredibuild in 2018 with belief in the enormous potential of distributed processing,” said Yoav Hineman, Partner at Fortissimo Capital and board member of Incredibuild. “The investment by Insight Partners is a great milestone in delivering unparalleled acceleration for software developers. Fortissimo remains with a significant holding in the company and Insight’s investment will further expedite the company’s growth by expanding into additional areas of DevOps by leveraging distributed processing.”

“We firmly believe that Incredibuild has built a crucial technology for any business that wants to develop better software, radically faster,” Wardi, who is set to take a seat on the board, said. “With our long history of investing in the development ecosystem, we are confident that Incredibuild will continue to innovate and build upon their recent momentum.”

Incredibuild provides an out-of-the-box platform that harnesses the power of compute to distribute processes across idle power in a network, thereby allowing companies to maintain a competitive edge by releasing better software faster. Built for both the cloud and on-premise environments, Incredibuild helps solve the time-to-market challenge and reduce compute costs by up to 30%. Over 800 customers, including Microsoft, Amazon, Citibank, Barclays, Adobe, Disney, Intel, Samsung, EPIC Games, and Nintendo, use Incredibuild to accelerate the development cycle, from code compilation to testing, to release automation. The investment signals strong confidence in the value of Incredibuild’s technology to its existing customer base, and a promise for continued product innovation and strong customer support going forward.

“In fiercely competitive markets, top quality frequent releases are vital,” said Mazel Shachar, who has been accelerating the company’s growth since joining a little over a year ago after having served as the co-president of the NSO group. “With the new funding, Incredibuild is poised to expand the market opportunity, enabling companies to maintain their competitive edge. With cloud adoption being paramount, we plan to further scale and evolve our software development acceleration platform for development teams and release managers in verticals such as finance, gaming, and the growing AR and VR markets.”