RYE, N.Y.–(BUSINESS WIRE)–SFW Capital Partners (“SFW”), a specialized private equity firm that invests in mid-sized companies across the information value chain with a particular focus on information, software, and analytical instrumentation, today announced that it has made a strategic investment in DZone, Inc. (“DZone”) in partnership with DZone’s co-founders, Rick Ross and Matt Schmidt, who currently serve as the CEO and President/CTO, respectively. SFW’s principals have supported the growth and development of some of the most successful and well-regarded analytical information, data network and knowledge management companies, including the Gerson Lehrman Group (GLG), AGDATA, MD Buyline, Keypoint Intelligence, Telephia and IAG Research. With SFW’s strategic support and resources, DZone plans to make significant investments to expand its product portfolio, enhance sales and marketing capabilities, access new markets, and meaningfully accelerate growth.
DZone, based in Cary, NC, is a leading platform for software developer focused technical content and a leading provider of knowledge and community management solutions for technology organizations. Founded in 2006 by Rick Ross and Matt Schmidt, DZone is organized into two complementary business units, DZone Media and AnswerHub.
DZone Media (www.dzone.com) represents a multi-sided network, providing user generated technical content to the global software developer audience. From a rapidly growing pool of over 10,000 contributing subject matter experts, DZone aggregates thousands of pieces of technical content delivered to a rapidly growing monthly audience of over five million software developers. With content organized by relevant technology categories (“Zones”), DZone facilitates deep knowledge sharing, support and communication among a highly engaged community of software developers and leading technology vendors, including six of the top 10 largest software companies.
AnswerHub (www.answerhub.com) offers a comprehensive platform for knowledge sharing and community management designed to enable technology organizations to manage, engage and support their software developer ecosystems. With a broad range of functionality for sharing technical information, facilitating community engagement and soliciting product insights, AnswerHub is well suited to technology organizations looking to encourage the utilization of their software platforms and API libraries by external stakeholders including 3rd party developers, partners and customers. Serving many of the world’s leading technology organizations, including five of the top 20 Fortune 500 technology companies, the AnswerHub platform accommodates over 10 million individual users across hundreds of independent developer communities.
“DZone fits perfectly with SFW’s investment focus on businesses that operate multi-sided information networks, critical workflow, and knowledge management solutions,” said SFW’s Omair Sarwar, who will be a member of the DZone Board of Directors. “We look forward to partnering with Rick, Matt and the DZone team to build on and extend the success of the Company.”
“We are extremely excited to be partnering with the SFW team,” said Rick Ross and Matt Schmidt. “After a thorough process evaluating a breadth of investment partners, we feel strongly that SFW’s relevant experience supporting the growth and development of information and software businesses, their deep knowledge of our Company and markets, and their strong industry-specific network will best position DZone for accelerated growth and development.”
About DZone
Since 2006, DZone has been focused on empowering software developers and helping them to obtain, share and maintain a deep corpus of technical knowledge in a highly engaged community setting. DZone operates two business units, DZone Media (DZone.com) and AnswerHub. DZone.com represents a leading destination for over five million software developers, technology experts and decision makers to learn, collaborate and share their knowledge and expertise within the global community. AnswerHub is the leading knowledge management and community engagement platform, committed to enabling leading technology organizations including IBM, Microsoft, Amazon, Linkedin and SAP, to manage, engage and support their software developer communities. The Answerhub platform supports over 10 million daily users across hundreds of interactive communities. To learn more please visit www.dzone.com or www.answerhub.com.
About SFW Capital Partners
SFW Capital Partners is a specialized private equity firm that makes strategic investments in mid-size companies across the information value chain, with a particular focus on analytical information, software and instrumentation, a sector that the principals of SFW have invested in for over 20 years. SFW’s businesses manage and provide information, data, and analytics that support critical decision-making and knowledge transfer processes across all major industries and business functions. These include, but are not limited to, providers of critical information, knowledge management, software, workflow solutions, lab, process and field instrumentation, control and monitoring solutions and test, inspection and certification services. For more information, please visit www.sfwcap.com.