A Texas technology investment firm bought a controlling stake in Jamf, a Minneapolis-based provider of management tools for Apple products, the companies said Wednesday.
Vista Equity Partners will add Jamf to a portfolio of about two dozen tech companies, including Bloomington-based Newscycle Solutions Inc. and Granicus, a Denver firm that Vista last year combined with St. Paul-based GovDelivery.
Terms of Vista's acquisition of the Jamf stake were not disclosed.
Jamf sells software and services to help companies set up and manage Apple computers and mobile devices for employees.
The company started in 2002 when founders Zach Halmstad and Chip Pearson were frustrated by the lack of tools for technology administrators to work with Apple computers. He started to develop programs to manage passwords, deploy software patches and keep track of Macs.
Halmstad and Pearson led the company until 2015, when Dean Hager was appointed chief executive. Pearson remains the company's chairman. Jamf has undergone a major growth spurt since then, adding more than 8,000 companies to its base of about 5,000 customers at the time.
Its annual recurring revenue grew more than 40 percent last year and through the first nine months of its current fiscal year, the company said in announcing the Vista transaction.
"This investment by Vista validates what we've built: the management standard for the Apple ecosystem," Hager said in a statement.
Evan Ramstad • 612-673-4241
