early childhood education

L Squared Capital Partners has sold its portfolio company Teaching Strategies to Summit Partners.

Teaching Strategies is a provider of early childhood (birth through third grade) educational resources, including curriculum and web-based assessment products.  Teaching Strategies serves over 20,000 early childhood educators globally. The company is led by CEO Kai-lee Berke, COO Ashley Mathis, and CFO Heather O’Shea and has 170 employees. Teaching Strategies, headquartered in Bethesda, MD, was founded in 1988 by educator Diane Trister Dodge (www.teachingstrategies.com).

Teaching Strategies was acquired by L Squared in October 2014 and during L Squared’s ownership term the EBITDA of the company more than doubled. L Squared was active in forming a new senior management team, introducing new products, and expanding the company’s sales and marketing functions. The firm also completed the add-on acquisition of Tadpoles (www.tadpoles.com), a provider of digital communications tools used by childcare programs to communicate with parents.

L Squared invests from $15 million to $75 million of equity in companies active in tech-enabled services & software, industrial technology & services, and education technology. Targeted investments will have revenue of $10 million to $100 million and EBITDA of $3 million to $20 million. The firm was founded in 2014 and is headquartered in Newport Beach, CA (www.lsquaredcap.com).

Summit Partners provides private equity and venture capital for growth companies.  Founded in 1984, Summit has raised more than $16 billion in capital and has provided equity, recapitalization, and management buyout financing to more than 395 companies across a range of industries. The firm has offices in Boston, Palo Alto, London, and Mumbai (www.summitpartners.com).

© 2018 Private Equity Professional | May 15, 2018

Audax Private Equity has sold Cadence Education, a provider of early childhood education, to Morgan Stanley Global Private Equity.

Cadence Education provides its education services to children ages six weeks to twelve years old. The company has the capacity to serve more than 20,000 students across its platform of more than 150 schools across 20 states. Since Audax’ initial 2007 investment and partnership with Doug MacKay, Cadence’s founder, the company has acquired 74 schools through 28 acquisitions and opened 14 greenfield locations. Cadence is headquartered in Scottsdale, AZ (www.cadence-education.com).

“Doug MacKay, Dave Goldberg, Paul Malek and the rest of the Cadence team have transformed the business from a multi-regional presence of education centers into a national platform of schools through add-on acquisitions, greenfield school development, and industry-leading systems and processes. We wish the company continued success with its new partner,” said Geoffrey Rehnert, Co-Chief Executive Officer of Audax Group.

The Audax Group makes control investments of $10 million to $100 million in middle market companies with transaction values of $25 million to $500 million. Sectors of interest include industrial manufacturing; energy; outsourced industrial services; consumer products; healthcare devices and services; non-asset based logistics; technology; aerospace & defense; business services; and direct marketing. The firm was founded in 1999 and has offices in Boston, New York and Menlo Park (www.audaxgroup.com).

“Audax has been tremendously valuable to Cadence throughout our partnership. We are proud of our accomplishments together and will greatly miss their exceptional team of professionals who were such a big part of our success,” said Dave Goldberg, CEO of Cadence .

Morgan Stanley Global Private Equity, the buyer of Cadence, makes private equity and equity-related investments of $75 million to $150 million in companies with enterprise values of $100 million to $1 billion. The firm is based in New York (www.morganstanley.com/privateequity).

FS Investments provided a $120 million senior secured unitranche loan to support this acquisition. FS Investments was founded in 2007 as Franklin Square Capital Partners and is headquartered in Philadelphia with additional offices in Orlando and Washington, DC (www.fsinvestmentcorp.com).

Lazard Middle Market (www.lazard.com) was the financial advisor to Cadence and Audax.

© 2016 Private Equity Professional • 9-21-16