Press Release | Financial Technology & Services (FTS)

Odessa announces investment from Thomas H. Lee Partners to accelerate growth

September 15, 2021

The strategic investment will support growth in the U.S. and international markets, expanding Odessa’s platform offering across financial services.

Philadelphia, Pennsylvania, September 15, 2021– Odessa, the global leader in asset finance software, today announced an investment from Thomas H. Lee Partners, L.P. (“THL”), a premier private equity firm that invests in growth companies.

Odessa’s architecture and design approach set it apart from existing equipment leasing and auto finance technologies by unifying siloed business teams and stakeholders to create a single system of insights, orchestration, and extensibility. This enables asset finance organizations to remain nimble and innovative in how they go to market, manage operations, and deliver customer value. Odessa customers realize significant value, including streamlined business operations, significant increases in deal velocity, data-based business decisioning, and omnichannel customer service.

“As the leader in asset finance technology, Odessa is ideally positioned to drive further customer-focused innovation and to unlock additional market opportunities,” said Ganesh Rao, Managing Director and Head of Financial Services at THL and Mark Bean, Director at THL. “We are confident that they have the vision and track record to disrupt and define the future of financial services technology, and we are excited to partner with them to support this growth trajectory.”

“We are grateful for the support of our employees that has fueled our success for more than two decades, and we are humbled by the confidence our customers and investors have in Odessa – but our vision goes further still,” said Madhu Natarajan, Co-Founder + CEO of Odessa. “There is an enormous opportunity to reimagine the way asset finance companies scale and adapt to disrupting market forces and changing consumer demand. We have the platform, technology, team, and investment partner to be the operating system that powers the modern enterprise.”

In the last year alone, Odessa has been Great Place to Work certified; named to the Inc. 5000 List for the second year in a row; named a leader in technology work culture as the Timmy Award winner for Philadelphia; and named a leader on the Most Innovative Companies list by Monitor Daily.

The investment seeks to catalyze Odessa’s growth initiatives and further accelerate the company’s platform roadmap and geographic expansion, including through M&A opportunities. To learn more about Odessa’s vision for the future of technology for financial services, read Madhu’s <blog>.

Houlihan Lokey served as M&A advisor to Odessa, with O’Melveny & Myers serving as its legal counsel and KPMG serving as financial advisor. Kirkland & Ellis served as legal advisor to THL, with Raymond James serving as its financial advisor and Oliver Wyman serving as commercial advisor.

About Odessa

Odessa is a software company exclusively focused in the leasing industry, and the developers of the Odessa Platform. Headquartered in Philadelphia, USA, Odessa’s leasing solutions and workforce of 1000+ power a diverse customer base of asset finance companies globally. Odessa provides a powerful, end-to-end, extensible solution for lease and loan origination and portfolio management. The Odessa Platform further provides rich feature sets including low-code development, test automation, reporting and business intelligence to ensure organizations can more effectively align business and IT objectives. Learn more at www.odessainc.com.

About THL

Thomas H. Lee Partners, L.P. (“THL”) is a premier private equity firm investing in middle market growth companies exclusively in three sectors: Financial Services, Healthcare and Technology & Business Solutions. THL couples deep sector expertise with dedicated internal operating resources to transform and build great companies of lasting value in partnership with management. The Firm’s domain expertise and resources help to build great companies with an aim to accelerate growth, improve operations and drive long-term sustainable value. Since 1974, THL has raised more than $30 billion of equity capital, invested in over 160 companies and completed more than 500 add-on acquisitions representing an aggregate enterprise value at acquisition of over $210 billion. THL invests in automation companies through its flagship private equity fund and a dedicated automation fund.