Qualtrics Acquisition, Valuation, Funding & Investors
Qualtrics was acquired by Silver Lake and CPP Investments for $13B in March 2023, a 8.2x multiple on $1.5B of revenue.
Qualtrics acquisition price
$13B
Acquired by Silver Lake, CPP Investments · Mar 2023
Qualtrics revenue at acquisition
$1.5B
Last twelve months · Mar 2023
Qualtrics revenue multiple at acquisition
8.2x
EV/Revenue · Mar 2023
Cumulative funding Qualtrics raised
$400M
across 3 funding rounds
About Qualtrics
Qualtrics is an experience management (XM) software company whose cloud-based subscription platform helps organizations collect and analyze customer, employee, product and brand feedback, and it is co-headquartered in Provo, Utah and Seattle, Washington. It was founded in 2002 in Provo by Scott M. Smith, Ryan Smith, Jared Smith and Stuart Orgill, and grew from a survey tool used widely in academia into an enterprise platform, launching its XM Platform in March 2017. SAP bought Qualtrics in January 2019 for $8 billion, it listed on Nasdaq in January 2021, and Silver Lake and CPP Investments took it private in a $12.5 billion all-cash deal completed on June 28, 2023, with Accel, BDT & MSD Partners and DFO Management co-investing. Its last full year as a public company, 2022, produced total revenue of $1,458.6 million, of which $1,223.7 million was subscription revenue, and Wikipedia reports 6,306 employees in March 2026. Acquisitions include Clarabridge for $1.125 billion in 2021 and the healthcare experience business Press Ganey Forsta for $6.75 billion, finalized in May 2026, which expanded its healthcare network to 41,000 facilities.
Founded
2002
HQ
Provo, UTWebsite
Status
Acquired
Customer focus
B2B
Revenue model
Subscription
Revenue
$191M (Apr 2017)
Valuation
$2.5B (Apr 2017)
Qualtrics Acquisition
Qualtrics was acquired by Silver Lake and CPP Investments for $13B on 12 March 2023.
The acquisition price implies a 8.2x revenue multiple on $1.5B of revenue.
Before the acquisition Qualtrics had raised $400M across 3 funding rounds.
Qualtrics agreed on 12 March 2023 to be acquired by Silver Lake, together with co-investors and the Canada Pension Plan Investment Board, for $18.15 per share in cash, valuing the company at approximately $12.5 billion on a fully diluted basis. The price was a 73 per cent premium to the thirty-day volume-weighted average price to 25 January 2023, the day before SAP disclosed it was exploring a sale of its stake, and a 62 per cent premium to the unaffected closing price. SAP, which had taken Qualtrics public again in 2021 while retaining majority ownership, sold its roughly 423 million shares for about $7.7 billion and exited the business entirely. The take-private closed in June 2023 and left Qualtrics owned by Silver Lake and CPP Investments with the founding Smith family remaining invested. Qualtrics was founded in 2002 in Provo, Utah and sells an experience management platform used to run customer, employee, product and brand research programmes. For the year ended 31 December 2022 it reported total revenue of $1,458.6 million, with subscription revenue of $1,223.7 million up 41 per cent.
| Acquirer | Date | Type | Price | EV/Revenue |
|---|---|---|---|---|
| 12 Mar 2023 | PE buyout | $13B | 8.2x |
Sources: qualtrics.com, sec.gov
Qualtrics Valuation
Qualtrics is currently valued at $2.5B, based on its Series C in April 2017. Read the announcement ↗
The $180M round was led by Accel and Insight Partners, with participation from Sequoia Capital.
Qualtrics' valuation has grown 2.5x from $1B at its Series B in September 2014 to $2.5B in April 2017, across 2 priced rounds.
Qualtrics valuation by funding round
Revenue multiple| Date | Stage | Valuation | Revenue Multiple |
|---|---|---|---|
| Apr 2017 | Series C | $2.5B | 13.1x |
| Sep 2014 | Series B | $1B | - |
Qualtrics Revenue
Qualtrics' latest recorded revenue is $191M, as of its Series C in April 2017. At a $2.5B valuation, that implies a 13.1x revenue multiple.
Qualtrics revenue by funding round
| Date | Revenue * | Valuation | Revenue Multiple | Stage |
|---|---|---|---|---|
| Apr 2017 | $191M | $2.5B | 13.1x | Series C |
* Revenue (or ARR) figures are the values recorded alongside each funding round. Typically run-rate revenue at the time of the deal, or a reported LTM (last 12 months) revenue.
Qualtrics Funding History
Qualtrics has raised a total of $400M across 3 funding rounds.
Qualtrics' first fundraising round was a $70M Series A in May 2012. The most recent completed round was a $180M Series C in April 2017.
Qualtrics funding rounds
| Date | Stage | Investors | Raised | Valuation | Deal Summary |
|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| Apr 2017 | Series C | Accel (lead); Insight Partners (lead); Sequoia Capital | $180M | $2.5B | Qualtrics, a survey and experience management (XM) software company founded in 2002, provides enterprise platforms for customer, employee, product, and brand experience management, serving over 19,000 customers including 75% of the Fortune 100. In April 2017, Qualtrics raised $180 million in a VC round led by Accel and Insight Partners, with participation from Sequoia Capital, achieving unicorn status at a $2.5 billion post-money valuation. This was part of over $400 million in total VC funding raised by the company from these investors. The 2017 round valued Qualtrics at $2.5 billion, significantly below its later trajectory as it approached an IPO. In calendar year 2017, Qualtrics generated $289.9 million in revenue, up 52% year-over-year, with approximately 75% from subscriptions. By mid-2018, implied ARR reached $288.1 million growing 42% YoY, and first-half 2018 revenue hit $184.2 million, up 40% YoY, with projections exceeding $400 million for full-year 2018 and over 40% forward growth. Qualtrics demonstrated efficiency with 122% net retention overall and 143% for 2017 Global 2000 customers, 25-month median payback on CAC, and positive free cash flow at near-$300 million ARR as of mid-2018. The company remained cash-efficient, never spending primary capital raised, and held $135.6 million in cash by June 2018. In late 2018, SAP acquired Qualtrics for $8 billion cash just before its planned IPO, which targeted $3.9-4.5 billion valuation. |
| Sep 2014 | Series B | Accel (lead); Insight Partners (lead); Sequoia Capital | $150M | $1B | Qualtrics, a Utah-based provider of experience management software including online survey, data collection, and analysis tools, raised $150 million in a Series B funding round in September 2014 led by Insight Venture Partners with participation from Accel Partners and Sequoia Capital. This round valued the company at $1 billion post-money, marking a significant milestone as one of the earliest Utah tech unicorns. The investment followed a prior $70 million round in 2012 from Accel and Sequoia, the largest joint investment by those firms at the time, and supported product enhancement and global expansion, including plans to grow its Dublin operations from over 50 to 150 employees by 2016. At the time of the 2014 round, Qualtrics served over 6,000 enterprise customers across more than 75 countries, adding approximately 400 new enterprise clients per quarter, with major users including Microsoft, FedEx, JetBlue, and HP. The platform specialized in customer and employee feedback, evolving from academic roots—founded by Ryan and Scott Smith in a Utah basement—to a robust business tool integrating data collection with organizational knowledge bases. This traction positioned Qualtrics as one of the fastest-growing companies globally. The 2014 $1 billion valuation represented a 150% increase from prior benchmarks by 2017, when Qualtrics raised another $180 million at $2.5 billion from the same lead investors plus Sequoia, bringing total funding to $400 million across three rounds. |
| May 2012 | Series A | Accel (lead); Sequoia Capital (lead) | $70M | - | Qualtrics raised $70 million in May 2012 from Accel Partners and Sequoia Capital, the first institutional investment the company had taken in ten years of operation. The round was described at the time as the largest joint investment the two firms had ever made together, and Qualtrics had been profitable and self-funded up to that point, so the capital was used to accelerate hiring and international expansion rather than to cover losses. Bryan Schreier of Sequoia and Ryan Sweeney of Accel joined the board. Qualtrics was founded in 2002 in Provo, Utah by Scott Smith and his son Ryan Smith, initially selling survey software to academic researchers before moving into enterprise market research and later into customer and employee experience management. At the time of the round it had several thousand customers and was growing rapidly without a traditional sales-led model. The investment set up two much larger rounds, $150 million in 2014 at a $1 billion valuation and $180 million in 2017 at $2.5 billion, before SAP acquired the company in 2018. |
Who has invested in Qualtrics?
3 investors have backed Qualtrics across its funding rounds, including Accel, Sequoia Capital and Insight Partners.
Lead investors include Accel, Insight Partners and Sequoia Capital.
Qualtrics Investors
| Investor | HQ | Rounds | Role | First check |
|---|---|---|---|---|
| San Francisco, CA | 3 | Lead | May 2012 | |
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Start Free TrialAcquisitions by Qualtrics
Qualtrics has acquired 6 companies to date.
Last acquisition by Qualtrics was on October 6th 2025. Qualtrics acquired Press Ganey for $6.8B.
Latest Acquisitions by Qualtrics
| Description | Press Ganey is a healthcare performance improvement and experience measurement company based in South Bend, Indiana. It was founded in 1985 and built its business on patient satisfaction surveys for hospitals and physician practices, later extending into employee and workforce engagement, safety and high reliability, clinical quality, consumer reputation management and strategic consulting. Clients are hospitals, health systems, physician groups and health plans, which buy survey programmes, analytics and benchmarking through a software platform and advisory services. The company is a federally approved vendor for the HCAHPS hospital patient survey and grew through a series of small acquisitions of survey, analytics, consulting and patient engagement businesses. It has been owned in turn by American Securities, Vestar Capital Partners, EQT, a Leonard Green and Ares led consortium and Qualtrics. | SurveyVitals is a patient feedback platform for healthcare providers across the United States and Canada. It collects real-time responses via SMS, email, and QR codes post-visit, benchmarking against a database of over five million surveys. Dashboards highlight trends in HCAHPS scores, enabling clinics and hospitals to improve satisfaction and reimbursements. | Clarabridge is a customer experience management platform utilizing text analytics, enterprise surveys, and engagement tools to process feedback from leading global brands. | Usermind is a Seattle-headquartered Customer Engagement Hub that unifies disparate enterprise systems and data sources into a customer data platform. Launched in 2013, it includes journey orchestration, machine learning, and analytics for omnichannel engagement throughout customer lifecycles, backed by Andreessen Horowitz, Menlo Ventures, and CRV. | |
| HQ Country | | | | | |
| HQ City | South Bend, IN | Boise, ID | Reston, VA | Seattle, WA | |
| Deal Date | 6 Oct 2025 | 6 Dec 2021 | 29 Jul 2021 | 20 Jul 2021 | |
| Valuation | $6.8B | $37M | $1.1B | $25M | |
| EV/Revenue | |||||
| EV/EBITDA | |||||
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Qualtrics Competitors
Qualtrics competitors include listed companies like SenseTime Group, Presight AI, Datadog and ServiceNow, and private ones like Baseten and Superhuman Platform.
| Company | HQ | Status | Revenue | EBITDA | Valuation | Revenue Multiple |
|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|
 China | Publicly listed | $753M | ($71M) | $6.2B | 5.6x | |
 UAE | Publicly listed | $825M | $214M | $5.1B | 4.7x | |
| United States | Publicly listed | $3.4B | ($588K) | $65B | 13.9x | |
| United States | Publicly listed | $13B | $2.6B | $106B | 6.9x | |
| San Francisco, CA | Private | - | - | $13B | - | |
| San Francisco, CA | Private | - | - | $13B | - |
Qualtrics Public Comps
Qualtrics is no longer listed, but its public comps include Dynatrace, iFlytek, Tempus AI, Range Intelligent, Fair Isaac, Elastic, UiPath, SenseTime Group, Octave Intelligence and Presight AI.
| Last FY | EV/Revenue | EV/EBITDA | ||||||
|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| Revenue | EBITDA | Last FY | LTM | 2027E | Last FY | LTM | 2027E | |
| $2B | $276M | 5.9x | 5.4x | 43.1x | 18.2x | |||
| $4.1B | $468M | 3.7x | 3.4x | 31.8x | 32.6x | |||
| $1.3B | ($131M) | 11.5x | 9.4x | (111.8x) | 268.5x | |||
| $851M | $803M | 20.6x | 14.9x | 21.9x | 19.6x | |||
| $2.5B | $1.3B | 7.9x | 7.9x | 15.0x | 12.9x | |||
| $1.7B | $35M | 4.7x | 4.3x | 235.7x | 23.6x | |||
| $1.6B | $70M | 3.5x | 3.2x | 80.1x | 12.4x | |||
| $753M | ($71M) | 6.9x | 5.6x | (73.1x) | 47.1x | |||
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Common questions about Qualtrics
| When was Qualtrics founded? | Qualtrics was founded in 2002. |
| Where is Qualtrics headquartered? | Qualtrics is headquartered in Provo, UT, United States. |
| Is Qualtrics publicly listed? | No, Qualtrics was acquired by Silver Lake and CPP Investments in March 2023. |
| Who acquired Qualtrics? | Qualtrics was acquired by Silver Lake and CPP Investments in March 2023. |
| How much was Qualtrics acquired for? | Qualtrics was acquired for $13B in March 2023, a 8.2x revenue multiple. |
| What is Qualtrics' valuation? | Qualtrics was last valued at $2.5B in its Series C in April 2017. |
| How much funding has Qualtrics raised? | Qualtrics has raised $400M across 3 funding rounds. |
| What was Qualtrics' last funding round? | Qualtrics' last funding round was a $180M Series C in April 2017, led by Accel and Insight Partners. |
| Who are Qualtrics' investors? | Qualtrics' investors include Sequoia Capital, Accel and Insight Partners. |
| What is Qualtrics' revenue? | Qualtrics' latest recorded revenue is $191M (April 2017). |
| What is Qualtrics' revenue multiple? | Qualtrics' latest valuation implies a 13.1x revenue multiple ($2.5B valuation on $191M of revenue). |
| Which companies are comparable to Qualtrics? | Companies comparable to Qualtrics include SenseTime Group, Presight AI, Datadog, ServiceNow, Baseten and Superhuman Platform. |
| How many companies has Qualtrics acquired? | Qualtrics has acquired 6 companies, including Press Ganey, SurveyVitals, Clarabridge, Usermind and Delighted. |
| What was the largest acquisition by Qualtrics? | The $6.8B acquisition of Press Ganey in October 2025 is the largest acquisition Qualtrics has made to date. |
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