Francisco Partners closed on FP Credit Partners, a $750 million opportunistic credit fund focused on the technology credit market.
“Credit is a natural extension of our platform that allows us to further leverage our domain knowledge and relationships across the technology industry,” Dipanjan “DJ” Deb, co-founder and CEO of Francisco Partners, said. “The strong in-house technology credit expertise we have added to our team in recent years has increased the number of ways FP can partner with companies and entrepreneurs.”
FP Credit Partners will look to deploy capital in both private and public opportunities across an array of situations including growth initiatives, supporting business model transitions and solving liquidity needs. To build Francisco Partners’ credit platform, the firm hired Scott Eisenberg in 2017 from GSO Capital Partners, where he had focused on technology credit investments since 2007.
“The FP credit platform is extremely well positioned to be a go-to source for flexible, customized capital solutions for a wide range of technology-focused companies,” Eisenberg, head of credit at Francisco Partners, said. “Having spent my career investing in technology credit, being part of the FP platform has tremendous advantages, such as unique sourcing and deep domain expertise.”
FP’s credit team has a combined 35 years of experience in credit markets, which provides the team insight into identifying creative solutions for companies as well as experience investing in public markets.
“In addition to providing capital directly to businesses, we are also finding very attractive public market opportunities during the current market dislocation,” Eisenberg said.
Most recently, Francisco Partners provided a structured credit solution to Eventbrite, a ticketing platform for live events, to enable the company to navigate temporal challenges related to COVID-19.
“We are grateful for our limited partners’ support of our credit platform,” Andrew Brown, partner and head of marketing and investor relations for Francisco Partners, said. “We feel LPs appreciate that our deep history of investing in technology companies provides us with differentiated opportunities and insights as a credit investor.”
Simpson Thacher & Bartlett served as legal adviser on FP Credit Partners.
Francisco Partners is a private equity firm that specializes in investments in technology and technology-enabled businesses. Since its launch 20 years ago, Francisco Partners has raised more than $24 billion in committed capital and invested in more than 275 technology companies.
