TA Associates will fully exit Rocscience, its geotechnical and engineering software portfolio company, under an agreement to sell the business to Hexagon AB at an enterprise value of about $535 million. TA became the company’s first institutional investor in June 2023.
Rocscience, founded as an independent company in 1996 by Dr. John Curran at the University of Toronto, makes 2D and 3D software that models how rock, soil and structures behave, used in mining, civil and structural engineering design and decision-making. During TA’s hold, the company expanded its product suite, invested in go-to-market operations, added AI-enabled product innovation including a natural-language interface, and made six acquisitions: DIANA FEA, 3GSM, DEEPSOIL, 2SI, Rockfield and Aquanty.
The sale continues this week’s run of private-equity exits to strategic buyers: alongside GE HealthCare’s $945 million purchase of Trilantic-backed SOFIE Biosciences, sponsor-owned industrial and infrastructure-adjacent businesses are finding buyers in corporates willing to pay for embedded positions in engineering and manufacturing workflows.