Private equity firm pays $6.6 billion to buy Stamps.com

Online postage and shipping software provider Stamps.com Inc. will be acquired for $6.6 billion by Thoma Bravo LLC, a private equity firm with a history of software investments, the companies said today.

The deal will convert stamps.com from a publicly traded firm into a private company and will allow it to access its new parent’s operating capabilities, capital support, and sector expertise, Thoma Bravo said.

El Segundo, California-based stamps.com will continue to serve the global e-commerce technology segment with products that allow users to print postage stamps, print shipping labels, and apply e-commerce and shopping cart integrations. The platform also lets users automatically import orders from Amazon.com, eBay, and Etsy, supports shopping carts with partners like Shopify, BigCommerce and Magento, and enables multi-carrier shipping software from ADSI and Descartes.

“As the first company to introduce online postage and an early innovator in e-commerce shipping software, Stamps.com has established itself as a key technology solution in worldwide e-commerce,” Holden Spaht, a managing partner at Thoma Bravo, said in a release. “With a highly-seasoned management team that has driven impressive growth for more than twenty years, an innovative suite of market-leading software solutions, and a large and growing customer base, Stamps.com is well positioned to capitalize on the strong secular tailwinds in e-commerce and we are excited to support the Company in its next chapter of growth.”

The move is stamps.com's latest expansion after making a number of acquisitions of its own in recent years, paying $230 million in 2018 to acquire the British e-commerce delivery technology vendor MetaPack and $215 million in 2015 for the electronic postage software firm Endicia.

“With the financial and operational support of Thoma Bravo, Stamps.com can continue to innovate and pursue growth opportunities to capture the expanding e-commerce shipping market and extend our position as the leading global multi-carrier e-commerce shipping software company,” Ken McBride, Stamps.com’s chairman and CEO, said in a release.

We have entered a definitive agreement to acquire @StampsCom, a leading provider of e-commerce shipping solutions. Read the full announcement here: https://t.co/6Kqj3ifzR2 pic.twitter.com/MPFSp9ufoH

— Thoma Bravo (@thomabravo) July 9, 2021