Pragmatic Institute, based in Scottsdale, AZ is a corporate training company focused on serving product management and marketing professionals. The Company’s product management framework and world class instructors are recognized as best-in-class by leading technology companies throughout the world.
http://www.pragmaticinstitute.com
Situation
Pragmatic Institute had a 20 year history of thought leadership in the rapidly growing field of product management. The company’s training certification was well regarded in the industry but the company had underinvested in sales and marketing to date. The founder was seeking liquidity after turning over daily operations of the company to the recently appointed CEO and had allowed Jim to build his own team with a new emphasis on growth.
Petra’s Role
In 2016, Petra partnered with Renovous Capital to buy out the founder’s ownership position and capitalize Pragmatic for growth. Within 18 months of closing, it became apparent that the CEO who was promoted from within was not the correct leader for this phase of company growth. Petra and Renovous worked together to identify and recruit a new CEO, CFO, and sales leader, who combined with the original marketing, operations, and IT leaders to manage the business over the next 4 years. In December 2018, Petra helped the company acquire The Data Incubator, a provider of training services in the data science field, diversifying the company’s service offering. COVID presented a unique challenge to Pragmatic as 98% of the company’s training was delivered in person at the time. We adjusted our loan terms and negotiated with the senior lender to give management room to reposition the company for online training delivery. Management did a fantastic job quickly pivoting to virtual delivery and Pragmatic’s performance recovered in the later part of 2020.
Results
After a broad auction process which garnered significant interest from buyers, Pragmatic was sold to MidOcean Partners in July 2022.