Orlando Bravo is a Puerto Rican billionaire businessman, co-founder and managing partner of Thoma Bravo, a private equity investment firm that specializes in software and technology-enabled services sectors. The 2019 Forbes 400 listed Bravo as the first Puerto Rican-born billionaire, and he debuted at #287.
Bravo began his professional career working in mergers and acquisitions for Morgan Stanley. In 1997, he joined Thoma Bravo's predecessor firm, Thoma Cressey Equity Partners, Inc. In the early 2000s Carl Thoma, a co-founder of the firm, allowed Bravo to lead the acquisition of product distribution software provider Prophet 21. It was the first software deal TCEP had ever done, and one of the earliest take-private transactions in the sector. At the time, Bravo noted it fit TCEP's strategy of buying strong franchises in large and fragmented industries. Because the deal happened when lenders were hesitant to provide capital for such deals, the deal took place with almost no dependence on leverage. Bravo brought in the firm's first operating partner to address the issue of the software companies' running on high gross margins with the potential of decent profitability, but were instead often losing money. After three years Prophet 21 produced a return of 4.7x at exit. This and other deals led Bravo to become a partner at TCEP, when he was 30 years old. At that time he ran the software group at the company. TCEP became Thoma Cressey Bravo in 2007, in recognition of Bravo's contribution to the firm's success. In 2008, Orlando Bravo helped form Thoma Bravo, LLC, when the firm changed its name and investment focus.
Thoma Bravo
Thoma Bravo is one of the top technology buyout firms in the United States, and along with predecessor firms Thoma Cressey Bravo and Thoma Cressey Equity Partners, the firm has completed more than 200 software and technology acquisitions representing an aggregate value of about $57 billion in enterprise value. Some of Thoma Bravo's current and past portfolio companies include Deltek, Blue Coat, Qlik, and Solarwinds. In 2016 the firm closed its Fund XII, raising $7.6 billion, twice the size of its previous fund. Bravo referred to this fund when he discussed how the firm evolved from a generalist private equity firm into a private equity software specialist. Thoma Bravo raised $12.6 billion for its 13th flagship fund, which was announced in January 2019. In February, the French business school HEC Paris, in conjunction with Dow Jones, named Thoma Bravo the best-performing buyout investor in the world after studying 898 funds raised between 2005 and 2014. According to public data analyzed by Forbes, its funds returned 30% net annually, and since the beginning of 2015, Thoma Bravo has sold or listed 25 investments worth a total of $20 billion, four times their cost. Thoma Bravo is estimated to be worth $7 billion and has done 230 software deals worth over $68 billion since 2003 and presently oversees a portfolio of 38 software companies that generate some $12 billion in annual revenue and employ 40,000 people.
Philanthropy
Bravo is a member of the Board of Trustees of Brown University and serves on Brown's President's Leadership Council. Orlando is a member of the Stanford Graduate School of Business Bay Area Chapter, Stanford GSB Latino Alumni Chapter, Stanford Law School San Francisco Chapter and Stanford Latino Alumni Association. He is on the board of Border Youth Tennis Exchange, a charitable organization founded to enhance the lives of children and young adults on the U.S./Mexican border through tennis, education and cross-border exchange. Bravo serves on the UCSF Board of Overseers. Bravo and his wife have helped endow faculty scholar and fellow positions at Stanford University's Sean N. Parker Center for Allergy Research. In April 2019, Bravo committed a $25 million gift to Brown University that will establish two professorships and the Orlando Bravo Center for Economics Research. The Orlando Bravo Center for Economics Research is housed in the Department of Economics and supports innovative research, training and collaborative projects for economic scholars including supporting faculty research, graduate students and undergraduate students. In the wake of Hurricane Maria, which devastated the island of Puerto Rico, Bravo donated $10 million through the Bravo Family Foundation's Podemos Puerto Rico Fund. Aid included chartering planes to carry cargo, including satellite phones, water, water purifiers, medicine and diapers. In May 2019, Bravo donated $100 million to the Bravo Family Foundation to promote entrepreneurship and economic development in Puerto Rico.
Personal life
Bravo is married to Katy Bravo, with three children, and lives in the San Francisco Bay area in California.
