SOME HIGH PROFILE EXITS

 

GRP Partners has been an investor in several high-profile deals over the last 20 years. Including pre—fund activity, GRP has had over 15 exits north of $1 billion. Companies we’ve backed include Overture.com, the pioneer in sponsored search which was sold to Yahoo; Bill Me Later, an innovator in online payments which was sold to eBay; DealerTrack, the automotive industry’s largest online credit application network which had an IPO in 2005; and Envestnet, a leading global investment platform management company which had an IPO in 2010.

Bill Me Later

BillMeLater created a credit platform for online shopping that allowed people to purchase items on line without having to enter credit card details. It turns out that a significant segment of online shoppers like to purchase items without having to enter payment information. They were typically targeting super prime customers, (higher-end luxury purchases) but getting retailers or e-commerce providers to accept a new payment method is very difficult. GRP was a perfect investment partner for BillMeLater as not only did we understand how the credit industry worked, but we were able to help BillMeLater gain traction with the retailers and help target their message to the right decision makers within these big online retailers. GRP was an early investor in BillMeLater and stayed with them during the ups and downs of refining their business model all the way through to their sale to eBay.

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Costco

When people see Costco on our list of successful exits they imagine that we invested during the growth or expansion phase of this company. We invested in Costco when they had only 5 locations—four in Seattle, one in Portland and three scheduled to open in Florida. We understood the trend that hypermarkets were likely to be the way that people wanted to shop for groceries and other consumer products, but the company needed working capital to expand. The partners at GRP worked with them during this time, helped them through their short-term funding gaps and ultimately helped to create one of the most successful retail concepts in history.

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Cybersource

GRP has always invested in disruptive game-changing technology and Cybersource was no exception. We were introduced to Cybersource by Paul Allen (a limited partner in GRP I and GRP II). Paul had started software.net (later beyond.com) to sell software electronically to consumers but many of the transactions turned out to be invalid due to credit card fraud. In order to address the fraud problems, Software.net created an internal side of the company which they called CyberSource. Paul realized there was a very good business model there and decided to focus on expanding this side of the business. GRP thought that Cybersource was the more compelling part of the business and upon investment separated the two businesses into two distinct companies. This was a successful instinct on our part as we had we had exits in both beyond.com and CyberSource and they were larger than they would have been had there only been once business model.

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Envestnet

Envestnet is a SaaS platform that enables independent financial managers to work with their clients by using a platform designed to help with portfolio accounting, reporting and back-office settlement of financial instruments. What was interesting to us about Evnestnet is that we saw a long term structural change in the industry happening. It used to be that as a financial advisor you had to be tied to one of the major brokerage houses in order to be able to service your clients. It was our belief that if there were third party systems that could enable independent advisors to work directly with their clients without being tied to these larger institutions, there would be demand for this service. Envestnet is now the largest such platform in the world managing over $75 billion in platform assets for more than 670,000 investment accounts.

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Lastminute.com

In the travel industry most last minute inventory historically was sold to business travelers and the conventional wisdom was that last minute travelers will always pay a premium because they have to go on the business trip. Lastminute.com’s big innovation was the idea of selling last minute travel options to consumers to desirable and attractive locations at a cheaper price. GRP was very knowledgeable about the travel industry as one of the partners had been previously been the head of American Express Travel Related services. GRP was very excited about Lastminute.com’s business model and it turned out to be quite a big idea. Lastminute.com was the most successful internet IPO in the United Kingdom. GRP was an early and lead investor in the company well beyond its very successful billion dollar IPO.

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Overture

When people talk about internet advertising the name Google is the first one that comes to mind as they are obviously the most successful company in this space. However, the model for pay-per-search was actually created in Los Angeles by Bill Gross out of idealab with overture.com. GRP was one of his earliest investors; we strongly believed in the power of what Bill was doing, that through algorithms the most relevant ads would rise to the top. There were several years where Silicon Valley venture firms were cynical of ad-supported businesses, but for GRP, being based in LA, being close to Bill, we knew otherwise. While it didn’t ultimately become Google, Oveture was acquired for $1.6 billion by Yahoo in 2003 and became the back-end platform for Yahoo’s search engine.

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ULTA

GRP Partners has had decades of experience in investing in the retail sector having led early-stage investments in Costco, Dick's Sporting Goods, Office Depot & Starbucks. We rode a major thesis of the 1980's/90's, which was the move from niche urban retail concepts to suburban big box formats. Nobody was more successful in investing in this strategy than the partners of GRP.  ULTA has been a continuation of this thesis. ULTA Cosmetics brings together all the best beauty concepts—department stores for prestige products, drug stores and mass merchandisers for mass products, and salons and authorized retail outlets for professional hair care products into a one-stop unique beauty superstore. We started investing in ULTA in the late 90's and continued helping with the expansion to ultimately become one of the largest & most successful concepts in its category. GRP Partners remained on the board through 2011 and has been an active supporter of the company from inception through its successful 2007 IPO and multi-billion dollar value.

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