GovDelivery has been acquired by Vista Equity Partners

Government-facing digital communications platform GovDelivery announced on Monday that it has been acquired by Vista Equity Partners for a price tag of $153 million.
“Vista is a world class partner for our next phase of growth,” GovDelivery CEO Scott Burns said in a statement. “This $153 million investment validates our strategy and is the largest single investment in a cloud-based government technology company to date.”
In a blog post, Burns shared his thoughts on what makes the acquisition an important opportunity.
“Scale matters because we must invest in security and innovation together,” he wrote. “Going forward, you can expect more of the same from GovDelivery and that’s a good thing. We will continue to listen to clients, expand and improve the solutions we offer, and invest in supporting security and other core government needs.”
For its part, Vista is intrigued by GovDelivery’s success in a crucial communications area.
“We see effective communications as an increasingly strategic function and were impressed by the extraordinary value and unrivaled security that GovDelivery brings to its clients in this fast growing area,” Patrick Severson, board member and principal at Vista, said.

If you’ve ever received an email from a government agency like the Department of Defense, FDA or TSA (to name just a few), then you’re implicitly familiar with GovDelivery. Among its other work, the company provides email communications for a bunch of different agencies — the telltale sign being a “powered by GovDelivery” logo at the bottom of the form.
And despite the fact that customers sometimes come and go (NASA stopped using GovDelivery in May 2016, citing costs), the company has been successful. With offices in St Paul, Minn., and D.C., GovDelivery works with more than 1,800 agencies to reach 120 million citizens. Internally, over half of GovDelivery’s staff is new since January 2015, according to a press release.
GovDelivery is also the parent company of both GovLoop, a government “knowledge network,” and Textizen, a Code for America-born civic tech company that allows governments to communicate with citizens via text. GovDelivery acquired SF and Philly-based Textizen in July 2015.