Deal Profile: Dan Goerdt CEO of Flexagon

Dan Goerdt, CEO and co-founder of Flexagon, knew it was time to find a partner to help scale his company, a leading provider of DevOps solutions. Flexagon’s flagship product, FlexDeploy, automates, secures, and streamlines the software development and deployment lifecycle for environments like Oracle, Salesforce, and SAP. "It was all about scale," recalls Goerdt. "We had established a product market fit, having grown Flexagon basically from the ground up, and we knew we had a great product. But the ability to scale, it just wasn't there. So we needed to figure out how to partner, how to find somebody to work with who could do that, and do that quickly."

Finding the right partner

The need to find the right partner led Goerdt to Corum. Goerdt had previously learned about Corum during some initial research. He remembers it this way: "In the early days of trying to figure out how to scale, trying to do my own research, I stumbled across some of the monthly updates that Corum offers. So I attended a couple of monthly updates from Corum and then eventually learned about their process." Impressed by Corum's disciplined process, which includes an extensive global search for buyers based on the world’s largest buyer database, Goerdt contracted with Corum to serve as Flexagon's M&A advisor. That relationship ultimately led to finding the right partner for Flexagon: Private Equity firm Main Capital Partners.

Getting educated

Goerdt found the process so effective ‒ something that he described as Corum holding "nice and tightly" ‒ his only regret is that he didn’t pursue it sooner. "I think it very likely would have helped to start engaging in and getting educated on the process a couple of years before I did," Goerdt says. He continues, "Having that knowledge a few years earlier might have put us in a better position to more effectively transition to a point where we could go to market sooner.”

In fact, Goerdt's advice to CEOs is to get educated early. "I'd never been through an M&A process,” he says. “So, just knowing about what that really entails, making sure that the prep work is done and whether you're positioned to do that, and making sure that you're well- positioned for the market will help you decide when you should move forward. Being able to have that as a background would have put me in a better position to make an educated decision on what's the right time to go to market."

Finding the right time

Finding the right time to go to market is crucial. In Goerdt's case, there were a number of pauses along the way to that optimal point in time. With Corum’s assistance, Goerdt's initial foray into the M&A market was positive, but not quite what he’d hoped for. "We went to market initially, Goerdt remembers. “There was interest; I had an offer. There was a lot of good activity, but we didn't find the right buyer at that point in time."

Goerdt learned from that initial experience. He told his team, "We got some good feedback from the market, but let's put this on pause and pick this back up later in the year." And that’s just what they did.

Returning to the M&A market later that year with Corum stimulated additional interest in Flexagon, but Goerdt decided that his team needed one more pause to what he says "firm up some of our numbers on the financial side to put us in a position where everybody felt comfortable with moving forward."

Those pauses were worthwhile because Goerdt notes, "It helped us focus. We were able to move forward and ultimately get what we wanted, and get what the buyer wanted. It was a good fit and we closed the deal.”

Life after the deal

With the strategic support of Main Capital Partners, Flexagon now has the resources to scale. Goerdt says about the post-acquisition phase, "We're in full execution mode. We've already brought on our first acquisition, a bolt on to our platform. We're deep into the integration of that first acquisition and about ready to launch the common platform. And we'll just keep going. So it's an exciting time for everybody. A lot of opportunity for our employee base. A lot of opportunity for the existing customers, certainly both end customer opportunities and through our partner channel. It's just a real neat situation to be able to scale the company, and then everybody benefits.”

Dan Goerdt’s full interview is available on Corum’s The Tech M&A Podcast.

The Tech M&A Podcast: Episode 84: Inside the Deal with Dan Goerdt