Bengaluru, Nov 19th:  Azul, the only company 100% focused on Java, today announced that it has entered into a definitive agreement to receive a majority strategic investment from Thoma Bravo, a leading software investment firm. As part of the transaction, Azul’s existing investors Vitruvian Partners and Lead Edge Capital will be reinvesting significant new capital and will retain minority stakes alongside Azul’s employees. 

Azul provides industry-leading Java runtime solutions that deliver superior performance, security, and cost efficiency for enterprise applications. Its products Platform Core, Platform Prime, the company’s high-performance Java platform, and Intelligence Cloud – help organizations run Java workloads faster, safer and more economically across hybrid and cloud environments. Azul’s growing customer base includes 36% of the Fortune 100 and the world’s ten largest banks, as well as many other highly regarded global businesses. This strategic investment from Thoma Bravo will support Azul’s continued growth to meet the rising demand for high-performance Java platforms, scale its engineering efforts, accelerate innovation in runtime performance, observability and security tooling, and expand its reach in global enterprise and cloud markets.

“We’re thrilled to welcome Thoma Bravo at this exciting time for our company and the Java ecosystem,” said Scott Sellers, co-founder and CEO of Azul. “Thoma Bravo brings the scale, resources, and expertise that align seamlessly with Azul’s vision and aspirations, strengthening our confidence in the significant growth opportunities ahead. We are grateful for their investment as well as for the continued backing from Vitruvian and Lead Edge. Together, we’ll accelerate our global growth, advance innovation across our platforms and deliver even greater value to our customers.”

“As enterprises move away from legacy Java offerings and face rising cloud infrastructure costs, demand for Azul’s enterprise-ready, scalable, secure and cost-efficient Java solutions has never been stronger,” said Adam Solomon, a partner at Thoma Bravo. 

“Azul’s superior technology foundation and talented and established team position the company for accelerated growth at this dynamic time in the Java market. We are excited to support Azul as they build on their impressive history of growth and leadership,” added Chandler Gay, a vice president at Thoma Bravo. 

“We’re very proud of the partnership we have formed with the Azul executive team to help deliver strong and consistent global growth over the past five years and are delighted to continue supporting Azul in its next chapter,” said Sophie Bower-Straziota, partner at Vitruvian Partners. “We are excited to welcome Thoma Bravo as Azul’s new majority owner and to deepen our commitment as Azul builds on its track record of exceptional results and success and pursues the significant opportunities ahead.”

Goodwin Procter LLP is serving as legal advisor and William Blair is serving as financial advisor to Thoma Bravo. Kirkland & Ellis LLP is serving as legal advisor and Guggenheim Securities, LLC is serving as financial advisor to Azul. Debt financing for the transaction is being provided by funds affiliated with Ares Management LLC.