On Wednesday, California private equity giant Silver Lake, the technology investor that now manages $75 billion in combined client assets, announced that it has raised “approximately” $20 billion for its sixth flagship fund, Silver Lake Partners VI, reaching its hard cap for limited partner capital commitments and including more than $500 million from the general partner.
Silver Lake said the capital raise enabled it to significantly increase the capacity of its flagship strategy for large-scale, growth investments in a wide range of opportunities driven by the broad impact of technology across the global economy.
“With more than two decades of experience singularly focused on technology investing, Silver Lake is firing on all cylinders as we continue to execute our strategy of helping to build and grow great companies at a time of accelerating digital transformation across the globe,” said Co-Chief Executive Officers Egon Durban and Greg Mondre on behalf of the firm’s Managing Partners.
“We are deeply grateful to the portfolio company management teams who invite us in to work with them as the true heroes of the Silver Lake story, and to the limited partners who have confidence in our ability to create exceptional long-term value in a socially responsible manner by helping those companies grow and drive innovation for the benefit of all stakeholders,” they added.
Silver Lake describes its investment approach as flexible, spanning a broad spectrum of technology, technology-enabled and related growth industries. Silver Lake portfolio companies collectively generate more than $180 billion of revenue annually and employ more than 400,000 people around the world.
Silver Lake’s Solid Gold 2020
In September, Silver Lake announced a $2 billion seed investment from Abu Dhabi sovereign wealth fund Mubadala to inaugurate a new long-term partnership strategy. Overall, in 2020, Silver Lake announced new investments in companies including Airbnb, Indian telecom owner Jio Platforms, Indian retail giant Reliance Retail, and mortgage provider Meilleurtaux; achieved partial or full realizations of its investments in companies including Alibaba, Ancestry and Credit Karma; and successfully exited portfolio companies such as GoodRx and Unity Technologies through initial public offering.
The Mubadala partnership announced last fall has a creatively structured 25-year lifecycle—hailed by co-CEO’s Durban and Mondre at the time as “unprecedented in its multi-decade time horizon”—and will deploy capital across investment structures, geographies and industries, as well as fluidly throughout capital structures and across the spectrum of early to later stage opportunities. In addition to the 25-year co-investment partnership, Mubadala also acquired a minority equity interest in Silver Lake itself.
“As an institution that has long seen the potential of investing in the technology sector, we are excited to partner with Silver Lake, one of the world’s most respected technology investors, to capitalize on major opportunities within and beyond the industry,” said Khaldoon Al Mubarak, Managing Director and Chief Executive Officer of Mubadala, upon announcing the partnership. “Technology is the bedrock of the global economy, and fundamental to all other sectors that are being significantly digitalized. Our goal is to be well positioned to take advantage of this accelerated digital transformation.”
