Petra invests $10 mln in BP3 Global

Nashville-based Petra Capital Partners, LLC invested $10 million in business process software provider BP3 Global. The capital will be used to accelerate the development of BP3’s Brazos decision management platform.

PRESS RELEASE

BP3 Global, the leading provider of business process and decision management (BPM) software and services, has taken a $10-million investment from Nashville, Tenn.-based private equity firm Petra Capital Partners, LLC. The investment will help BP3 speed up the development of its Brazos platform, which collects data, surfaces insights and then directly takes action on those insights by injecting changes into business processes.

“The big disconnect in the analytics space is that, while software gives companies a look into operations, managers don’t have the tools to act on those insights,” said Scott Francis, Chief Executive Officer of BP3. “Our customers leverage our Brazos platform and services to turn actionable suggestions about a customer, employee, or piece of equipment into decisions that boost profit, satisfaction or safety.”

The first software wave forever changed back-office operations through enterprise resource planning (ERP). The second wave, which entailed customer relationship management (CRM), brought companies a storehouse of know-how about their clients. The third wave of software development is converting the accumulated wealth of analytics about products, processes and services into action.

Improving the way things get done inside a company goes beyond charting inconsistencies or bottlenecks in an employer’s process. Working with its clients, BP3 has developed its Brazos platform and services in a way that embeds actionable insights directly into a company’s workflow.

For example, when a water and sewer authority was told by its regulator to decrease the occurrence of pollution-causing spills from its system, BP3 integrated software that analyzed varying conditions in the utility’s lines. By connecting to hundreds of newly installed monitors in the utility pipes, BP3 fed results to a supervisory control and data acquisition (SCADA) system and, when needed, a work management system for dispatching utility crews. BP3 is now working to add predictive analytics to preemptively flag potential issues.

For one of the world’s leading beverage makers, BP3 software enabled field consultants to streamline customer orders for a wide array of beverage coolers and reduce order-error rates from 5.0 percent to 0.5 percent.

“BP3 brings a great package of software and consulting to supplement a BPM program,” said Connie T. Masterson, senior vice president for Treasury Management Implementation at Wells Fargo. “For us, that package has been the single most valuable attribute of BP3 compared to others in the marketplace.”

“Starting from a foundation of workflow design and optimization, BP3 gained the key know-how to connect our clients’ operations,” added Lance Gibbs, Chairman of BP3. “We’ve been developing the Brazos platform to accelerate the path of value for our customers. And today our platform powers thousands of applications for the Fortune 100. Today’s investment takes the platform and BP3 even further ahead.”

“BP3 represents a perfect example of what we look for in an investment at Petra,” said Rob Smith, Partner at Petra Capital Partners. “In spite of having raised no outside capital prior to our investment, the team at BP3 has built a world class, high growth services organization and has developed proprietary software and solutions that deliver tremendous value to its customers. As companies must increasingly interact with both customers and employees across multiple digital devices and channels, the necessity for innovative business processes is no longer a luxury but a requirement. We’re thrilled to be partnering with an organization in BP3 that we believe is well positioned to be the leader in this rapidly growing market.”

About BP3 Global
BP3 provides business process, decision management, and analytics software and services to the Fortune 500. Since 2007, BP3’s Brazos Platform has been powering thousands of digital transformations at our customers. BP3’s solutions and services have transformed customer experiences in Financial Services, Retail, Healthcare, and the Energy sectors. BP3 goes beyond analytics by embedding insights into workflows to actually address the problems by connecting the dots between the customer experience and the enterprise. The largest corporations in the world depend on BP3’s operational services including: 24×7 solution support, process optimization, migration assistance, and cloud management. BP3 is a best place to work recognized by Fortune magazine and The Austin Business Journal. A fast growing company headquartered in Austin, Texas with offices in London, Amsterdam, and Copenhagen. For more information, please visit: http://www.bp-3.com

About Petra Capital Partners
Petra Capital Partners is a Nashville, TN-based private equity firm engaged in providing growth capital for technology, business service and healthcare companies located throughout the United States. Petra’s team specializes in partnering with outstanding management teams to provide creatively structured capital solutions for high growth companies in a collaborative manner. Petra has a proven track record of success assisting entrepreneurs, management teams, and co-investors in building sustainable high-growth companies. Petra’s record spans 20+ years investing more than $650 million in over 100 companies. Petra is currently seeking investments out of its $230 million fund, Petra Growth Fund III. Petra seeks to invest up to $20 million per company, typically in a combination of equity and subordinated debt. Petra is licensed as a Small Business Investment Company (SBIC) by the U.S. Small Business Administration, and was named SBIC of the Year in 2012, helping to create more than 8,000 jobs through our investments.

For more information, please visit Petra’s website at http://www.petracapital.com.