Council Capital announced today Lancope, Inc., a highly successful portfolio company, has recently been acquired by Cisco. Lancope, based in Alpharetta, GA, provides network behavior analytics, network visibility, and security intelligence to protect enterprises against top cyber security threats. Under the terms of the agreement, Cisco paid $452.5 million in cash and assumed equity awards, which resulted in a 10x return on Council Capital’s investment in Lancope, an impressive realized return that makes Council Capital Fund I one of the best performing funds in the country for its vintage year.
Lancope’s market-leading security solution helps protect the data of millions of people as information security continues to be of extraordinary importance across all industries. The credit for this highly successful exit goes to the tireless effort, tremendous execution, and dramatic sales growth enabled by CEO Mike Potts, COO/CFO David Cocchiara, and the entire Lancope team.
During Council Capital’s investment in the company, Lancope received access to the CEO Council business model, a distinct value proposition of Council Capital that offers exclusive access to a top tier group of 34 industry-leading CEOs who have invested over $120 million in Council Capital funds and are deeply involved in helping support the growth and success of the company’s portfolio companies by providing access to their extensive networks and expertise. The CEO Council business model had a profound impact on Lancope early on, helping position the company for future success.
“Lancope is another great case study on the power of the CEO Council business model,” said Katie Gambill, co-founder and general partner at Council Capital. “At a critical point in the company’s development, Council Capital helped facilitate and guide relationships in the health system market, which helped Lancope’s product family evolve even further.”
Lancope’s presence in the healthcare market flourished over time and today Lancope counts an impressive list of companies as customers, including Hospital Corporation of America, Community Health Systems, Geisinger Health, Dignity Health, Johns Hopkins Health System, Aetna, Humana, Blue Cross Blue Shield of California, Catamaran, and Express Scripts.
“The CEO Council is a very impressive group of well-connected people with tremendous business experience, especially in the healthcare industry,” said Mike Potts, CEO at Lancope. “Partnering with Council Capital helped to drive additional value to our business and gave our team even more confidence when selling Lancope solutions.”
Council Capital continues to seek partnerships with fast-growing healthcare-related companies who will benefit from the company’s CEO Council business model.
About Council Capital
Council Capital is a Nashville-based private equity firm with approximately $300 million of capital under management. Council makes investments in fast-growing healthcare companies, targeting companies with enterprise values between $10-50 million. The firm seeks investments on the “right side of change” in healthcare where growth will accelerate as cost pressure and quality demands increase. The investment team targets companies with strong management, differentiated and proven business models and potential for substantial future growth. Council Capital has a longstanding history of successfully partnering with healthcare companies that will benefit from its CEO Council business model to further grow their companies’ strong foundations. Council Capital’s strategy involves utilizing their extensive healthcare operating and transaction experience, strategic resources and industry relationships to create long-term growth and profitability for exceptional healthcare companies. For more details, please visit our website at www.councilcapital.com.
About Lancope:
Lancope, Inc. is a leading provider of network visibility and security intelligence to protect enterprises against today’s top threats. By analyzing NetFlow, IPFIX and other types of network telemetry, Lancope’s StealthWatch® System delivers Context-Aware Security Analytics to quickly detect a wide range of attacks from APTs and DDoS to zero-day malware and insider threats. Combining continuous lateral monitoring across enterprise networks with user, device and application awareness, Lancope accelerates incident response, improves forensic investigations and reduces enterprise risk. For more information, visit www.lancope.com.
About Cisco
Cisco (NASDAQ: CSCO) is the worldwide leader in IT that helps companies seize the opportunities of tomorrow by proving that amazing things can happen when you connect the previously unconnected. For ongoing news, please go to http://thenetwork.cisco.com.