TEOCO Brings Home Huge Investment from TA Associates. 10/6/09 Private Placement. At $60M, it is hard to find a larger first-time minority tech investment than the one made by TA Associates of Boston– at least locally. Awkwardly named TEOCO of Fairfax really means The Employee Owned Company—not too catchy but clearly successful. The company provides critical cost, routing and revenue management software and services for telecom service providers. At least several locally funded companies have set sail in those seas only to end up on the rocks. TEOCO is unique not only because of the size of this investment but because this is the first institutional money ever taken. We don’t know the revenues underneath the investment, but they are likely to be considerable. Not surprisingly, this amount of money will be used to help consolidate the industry (remember those ships on the rock). TA Associates can make this investment because it is one of the largest and oldest players in the private equity industry. Earlier this year, TA did the impossible. It raised $4B for a fund targeted to raise $3.5B. (The rich funds get richer—see the NEA story below in DEAL NEWS.) TA technically runs “buyout” funds, but this is clearly labeled as a minority investment. It is interesting to note that TA is not sharing its toys with any other funds, which means no local participation. When you are $4B, it is hard enough to find sizeable investments—sharing does not come easily.
