Exclusive: Bessemer Venture Partners launches growth buyouts practice

Bessemer Venture Partners is launching a growth buyouts practice to complement its early-stage and growth equity efforts, Axios has learned. It will be led by Rob Arditi, who previously was a general partner with Norwest Venture Partners.

Why it matters: The venture capital market has gotten very crowded, but relatively few firms have moved upstream into actual buyout transactions.

• BVP Forge, as the new group is being called, will focus on both control and significant minority deals in software, internet and tech-enabled services companies.
• "Bessemer sold Applitools to Thoma Bravo and Clio to TCV, so it's been these deals from the other side and have some pattern recognition from it," Arditi says. "We see ourselves buying some of those VC-backed companies, and also buyouts of more traditional, founder-owned companies."
• Arditi declined to discuss fundraising plans, citing regulatory restrictions, but expect BVP to soon begin pitching a growth buyout fund to prospective investors.