Smartsheet hired investment bankers after receiving buyout interest from private equity firms, according to a report from Reuters on Thursday.
The company has not decided whether it should launch a sale process, Reuters reported, citing unnamed sources.
GeekWire reached out to Smartsheet for comment, and we’ll update this story if we hear back.
The Bellevue, Wash.-based software giant, which launched in 2005 and went public in 2018, has a market capitalization of around $6.6 billion.
Smartsheet makes cloud-based enterprise work management technologies for managing and tracking projects, collaborating, storing data, and automating and assigning tasks, among other capabilities. The company has more than 3,300 employees.
Smartsheet revenue rose 20% year-over-year to $263 million during its first fiscal quarter, topping analyst estimates. It also trimmed net losses from $29.9 million in the year-ago quarter to $8.9 million.
Mark Mader, longtime CEO at Smartsheet, told GeekWire earlier this year that the AI boom is helping to boost interest and curiosity in the company’s products.
Smartsheet stock rose more than 5% on Thursday afternoon. The company’s stock price has bounced back after falling throughout the first half of 2024.
M&A activity has slowed in the past few years, creating “pent-up demand (and supply), particularly in the private equity universe,” according to a report from PwC this week.
“The daunting combination of high interest rates, current valuations and political uncertainty has been a showstopper for many deals,” said Brian Levy, global deals industries leader and partner for PwC US, said in the report. “Nevertheless, the strategic need for M&A continues to grow stronger, creating pent-up demand which will be unleashed as these uncertainties resolve.”