The cloud cost optimization sector notched another significant consolidation move as Flexera, backed by private equity giant Thoma Bravo, acquired ProsperOps from H.I.G. Growth Partners in a transaction that underscores the intensifying battle to help enterprises tame spiraling cloud infrastructure expenses.
The deal, announced Monday, marks a swift exit for H.I.G. Growth, which invested in the Austin-based FinOps automation platform just over three years ago in December 2022. During that period, ProsperOps transformed from a single-product, single-cloud solution into a comprehensive platform spanning Amazon Web Services, Google Cloud Platform, and Microsoft Azure—while posting eye-catching financial metrics that illuminate both the company's execution and the broader market opportunity.
Under H.I.G.'s ownership, ProsperOps grew annual recurring revenue more than six-fold and increased EBITDA by more than nine-fold. The company now manages approximately $6 billion in annual cloud spend for its customers and has generated over $3 billion in lifetime savings, according to company disclosures. Those figures reflect not just ProsperOps' growth trajectory but the scale of waste enterprises are hemorrhaging in cloud infrastructure—a problem that has only intensified as organizations layer AI workloads atop already complex multi-cloud environments.
The acquisition comes at an inflection point for the FinOps market, which has evolved from a niche discipline into a boardroom imperative. The cloud financial management sector is projected to reach $26.91 billion by 2030, expanding at a 12.6% compound annual growth rate from 2025 through 2030, according to market research. That growth is being driven by accelerating cloud adoption across enterprises, increasing cost pressure from AI-intensive and multi-cloud workloads, and the growing need for disciplined cloud financial management.
For Flexera, the ProsperOps acquisition represents a strategic bet on automation as the answer to an increasingly intractable problem. The deal pairs ProsperOps' AI-enabled commitment management capabilities with Flexera's existing IT asset management and software licensing optimization portfolio, creating what the companies position as a more comprehensive platform for technology spend management.
"ProsperOps was founded on the belief that many of the critical cloud cost optimization use cases, particularly rate optimization, could be delivered through AI-enabled management," said Chris Cochran, CEO and co-founder of ProsperOps. "As the market matures, customers are asking for more than point solutions; they want unified rate optimization, workload optimization, and cost visibility."
The timing of the transaction reflects broader dynamics reshaping enterprise technology spending. As organizations have migrated workloads to the cloud over the past decade, many discovered that the promised cost savings proved elusive. The shift from capital expenditure to operating expenditure models introduced new complexities: dynamic workloads, reserved instance commitments, spot pricing, savings plans, and a dizzying array of pricing constructs across multiple cloud providers.
ProsperOps built its business on automating what had traditionally been a manual, spreadsheet-driven process. Rather than having finance and engineering teams analyze cloud usage patterns and manually purchase commitments, the platform uses algorithms to continuously optimize an organization's mix of on-demand, reserved, and savings plan resources. The company's pitch centers on eliminating the "commitment lock-in risk" that occurs when enterprises over-commit to reserved capacity that goes unused, or under-commit and pay premium on-demand rates.
The approach resonated with enterprises struggling to manage cloud costs that often grow faster than revenue. Cloud spending has become one of the fastest-growing line items on corporate income statements, yet many organizations lack the tools, processes, and expertise to manage it effectively. A 2024 survey by the FinOps Foundation found that the average enterprise wastes 32% of its cloud spend—a figure that translates to billions of dollars annually across the industry.
H.I.G. Growth Partners, which manages capital as part of H.I.G. Capital's $72 billion in assets under management, saw the opportunity early. The Miami-based firm has built a reputation for growth equity investments in vertical software and technology-enabled services, often taking majority or significant minority stakes in companies poised for rapid scaling.
"Since our investment in ProsperOps, we have been proud to partner with Chris and the broader team to help build a clear leader in FinOps automation," said Ross Hiatt, managing director and head of H.I.G. Growth. "The team's focus on product innovation, disciplined execution, and customer outcomes has driven exceptional growth and platform expansion."
The firm's involvement extended beyond capital. During H.I.G.'s ownership, ProsperOps expanded from supporting only AWS to adding Google Cloud Platform and Microsoft Azure, transforming from a point solution into a multi-cloud platform. The company also broadened its product portfolio and scaled its go-to-market organization, moves that expanded its addressable market and positioned it as an attractive acquisition target for strategic buyers seeking to build comprehensive FinOps platforms.
For Thoma Bravo, which acquired a majority stake in Flexera in 2020, the ProsperOps deal fits a familiar playbook. The San Francisco-based private equity firm has built a software empire through a buy-and-build strategy, acquiring platforms in fragmented markets and then consolidating adjacent capabilities through tuck-in acquisitions. Thoma Bravo's portfolio includes more than 100 software companies with combined revenues exceeding $30 billion, spanning cybersecurity, infrastructure software, and enterprise applications.
Flexera itself has been an active consolidator. The company, which started as a software licensing and compliance platform, has steadily expanded into adjacent areas of IT asset management and optimization. The ProsperOps acquisition extends that strategy into cloud cost management, an area where Flexera had capabilities but lacked the depth of automation and AI-driven optimization that ProsperOps brings.
Notably, Flexera simultaneously acquired Chaos Genius, a fast-growing innovator in AI-driven cost optimization for Snowflake and Databricks, according to industry reports. The dual acquisition signals Flexera's ambition to address not just traditional infrastructure-as-a-service costs but also the newer category of data platform spending, which has emerged as another significant cost center as enterprises build out data lakes and AI infrastructure.
The transaction structure wasn't disclosed, but the financial performance metrics H.I.G. highlighted suggest a successful outcome for the growth equity firm. A six-fold increase in ARR and nine-fold increase in EBITDA over roughly three years represents the kind of value creation that typically generates strong returns, particularly if the company achieved those metrics while maintaining or improving unit economics.
For ProsperOps employees and customers, the acquisition represents both opportunity and uncertainty. On one hand, Flexera's resources and customer base could accelerate product development and market penetration. Flexera serves thousands of enterprises globally, providing a built-in distribution channel for ProsperOps' technology. The combination could also enable deeper integration between cloud cost optimization and broader IT asset management, creating a more unified view of technology spending.
On the other hand, acquisitions often bring integration challenges, cultural shifts, and strategic pivots that can disrupt momentum. ProsperOps built its reputation on a focused, automated approach to a specific problem. Whether that focus survives integration into a larger platform remains to be seen.
The deal also raises questions about the future of the FinOps market. As larger platforms like Flexera acquire specialized point solutions, the market may consolidate around a handful of comprehensive platforms rather than a diverse ecosystem of best-of-breed tools. That could benefit enterprises seeking integrated solutions but might reduce innovation if smaller, specialized vendors struggle to compete or find exit opportunities.
The major cloud providers themselves represent another competitive dynamic. AWS, Google Cloud, and Microsoft Azure have all built native cost management and optimization tools, creating a classic "coopetition" scenario where ProsperOps and similar vendors must integrate deeply with platforms that also compete with them. The cloud providers have an inherent advantage in data access and pricing flexibility, but they also face conflicts of interest—their revenue depends on consumption, creating questions about how aggressively they'll help customers reduce spending.
Industry observers note that the FinOps market is still in relatively early innings despite rapid growth. While large enterprises have embraced FinOps practices and tools, mid-market companies are just beginning to formalize cloud cost management. The shift toward AI workloads is also creating new optimization challenges, as GPU-intensive computing introduces different cost dynamics than traditional application workloads.
"We're moving beyond cost tracking into real-time decision making," noted one industry analysis of FinOps trends in 2026. The evolution from reactive reporting to proactive, automated optimization represents the next frontier—and the core of ProsperOps' value proposition.
For H.I.G. Growth Partners, the exit validates its thesis on the FinOps market and its approach to value creation in growth-stage software companies. The firm has been active in vertical software and technology-enabled services, sectors where it can leverage operational expertise to help portfolio companies scale. The ProsperOps investment exemplifies that strategy: identify a company with strong product-market fit in a growing category, provide capital and operational support to accelerate growth and expand the platform, then exit to a strategic buyer or larger financial sponsor.
"ProsperOps' evolution over the past several years reflects the power of combining a world-class management team with a clear vision for product innovation," said Albert Koh, managing director at H.I.G. Growth. "From expanding the platform across all major cloud providers to scaling the organization globally, the company has consistently executed ahead of expectations."
The transaction also highlights the continued appetite for software assets despite a more challenging exit environment than the frothy 2020-2021 period. While IPO markets remain largely closed to all but the largest, most profitable software companies, strategic M&A has remained active, particularly for assets with strong growth profiles and clear strategic value to buyers.
As enterprises continue their cloud migrations and grapple with the cost implications of AI adoption, the FinOps market seems poised for continued growth and consolidation. The ProsperOps-Flexera deal likely won't be the last combination in the sector. With billions of dollars in cloud waste at stake and a fragmented vendor landscape, the conditions are ripe for further M&A activity as platforms race to offer comprehensive solutions.
For now, the deal represents a successful outcome for H.I.G. Growth, a strategic expansion for Flexera and Thoma Bravo, and a validation of the FinOps automation thesis that Cochran and his team have been building since founding ProsperOps in 2018. Whether the combination delivers on its promise of creating a "dominant FinOps platform" will depend on execution in the months and years ahead—but the bet that cloud cost optimization is a large, growing, and strategically important market is one that both buyer and seller clearly share.