Choate Represents Great Hill Partners in Majority Investment in Evolve IP

Choate today announced that it represented Great Hill Partners, a leading middle-market growth-oriented private equity firm, in the purchase of a majority stake in Evolve IP, The Cloud Services Company™.  The terms of the transaction were not disclosed.

The Choate deal team was led by partners Steve Meredith and Sean Monahan and associates Rebecca Wilsker, Joey Polonsky, Hanna Roos, Rachel Connors, and Shaina Wamsley.

In addition to the purchase, Great Hill has reserved an additional up to $100 million of incremental capital for Evolve IP for future growth investments and strategic acquisitions.  Evolve IP intends to use the additional capital to accelerate its growth plans, including increasing its product offerings, growing its geographic footprint and expanding headcount across all areas, while continuing to provide its customers and partners with solutions that are fast, efficient, cost-effective and secure.  Evolve IP will also use this investment to expand and enhance its national distribution channels, including Value Added Resellers, Direct Market Resellers and Master Channel Partners. 

Since launching in 2007, Evolve IP has been one of the nation's fastest growing cloud services companies.  Its industry-leading solutions are designed to provide organizations with a unified option for cloud services, including: virtual servers, disaster recovery, IP telephony, unified communications (Internet, phone and data) and contact centers.  The Company's services are currently deployed in four continents and 15 countries, to more than 1,300 commercial business accounts with more than 100,000 users, licensed seats and managed end points.  In contrast to the legacy, on-premise model in which an organization continually needs to re-invest in its own infrastructure, Evolve IP efficiently migrates organizations to the cloud - freeing up IT resources, eliminating capital expenditures and lowering total cost of ownership.

Since its inception, Great Hill Partners has been committed to providing private equity to finance the expansion, recapitalization or acquisition of growth companies in a wide range of sectors including software, financial and healthcare technology, digital media, eCommerce and internet infrastructure.  Based in Boston, MA and with more than 50 portfolio companies and 100 consolidating acquisitions, Great Hill Partners' team of private equity experts has a proven track record of guiding middle-market companies toward their growth and success targets.

"Just a decade ago, 'the cloud' was a nascent industry, but it has now grown to become one of the fasting growing technology sectors.  Organizations around the world are making the transition to the cloud at an ever increasing rate, and the support and services provided by Evolve IP make it a clear leader in the space," said Christopher S. Gaffney, Co-Founder and Managing Partner of Great Hill Partners. "Tom, Michael and the entire Evolve IP team have helped to shape the rapidly evolving cloud services industry with a proven business model, best-in-breed customer service, and commitment to innovation.  We are excited to work closely with the team as they continue to expand their capabilities and suite of cloud services through organic growth and strategic acquisitions."