Symphony Closes Fund IV At $870 Million

Symphony Technology Group LLC announced March 27 that it has closed its latest fund, STG IV, at its targeted $870 million. Palo Alto,Calif.-based Symphony Technology Group is a growth oriented specialist in technology and software companies.

Symphony Technology Group said the new fund is significantly larger than its predecessor. Fund III closed at 791 million in 2007, according to the Thomson One database.

Symphony Technology Group said its current portfolio includes 13 companies with combined revenue of more than $1 billion and thousands of employees in North America, Europe and Asia. Its portfolio includes the Shopzilla collection of e-commerce sites, Sigma3, which develops software used in oil and gas exploration, and the computer aided engineering developer MSC.Software. Last June, it announced the sale to New Mountain Capital LLC of a majority interest in SymphonyIRI Group Inc., a developer of analytical tools for the consumer packaged goods, retail and health care industries.

Romesh Wadhwani, a serial entrepreneur, launched Symphony Technology Group in 2002 following the $9.3 billion sale of his last company, the supply chain management software and services company Aspect Development Inc., to a rival maker of business-to-business software, i2 Technologies. Symphony Technology Group lists 17 investment professionals on its Web site.

Fund IV is the second Symphony Technology Group fund to accept commitments from outside investors, Buyouts reported last September. At the time, the firm was considering a fund as large as $1 billion, sources said. As in the firm’s previous funds, Wadhwani is the single largest partner in STG IV, according to the firm’s press release.

Top co-investors include Bessemer Venture Partners, Cordova Ventures, SSM Partners and Tennenbaum Capital Partners LLC, according to Thomson One.