Robert Ambrogi Blog
The practice management platform Rocket Matter, whose launch in 2009 alongside Clio helped usher in a new generation of cloud practice management platforms, has been acquired by a private equity firm.
It will become part of a new company, ProfitSolv, that will focus on billing, payments and software for professional services firms.
The new company was formed by Lightyear Capital LLC, a New York privacy equity firm focused on financial services, as the lead investor, with a significant minority stake held by Greater Sum Ventures.
Two other companies have also been acquired and made part of the new company, TimeSolv, a provider of cloud-based software for legal billing and timekeeping, and ImagineTime, a practice management and payments company serving accounting and other professional services firms.
Kelley Castell has been appointed chief executive officer of ProfitSolv. He previously held a variety of senior leadership roles at fintech and payments companies including Bluefin Payment Systems, Oasis Outsourcing, and First Data.
Larry Port, founder and CEO of Rocket Matter, told me he will remain with the company.
This news of Rocket Matter’s acquisition comes two weeks after news of the sale of practice management platform MyCase, another early cloud practice management platform, to a private equity firm for $193 million in cash.
Recent years have seen other acquisitions of cloud-based practice management companies, including the 2018 acquisition of Practice Panther by Alpine Investors and the 2018 acquisition of CosmoLex by Software Technology LLC.
Pioneering Cloud Company
Along with Clio, Rocket Matter was the first of a new breed of cloud-based practice management platforms. As I discussed in a 2013 post, while Clio was first to market with its commercial version on Oct. 1, 2008, Rocket Matter was first to announce its beta on Feb. 21, 2008, with its commercial product hitting the market on Jan. 6, 2009.
As I wrote in 2018, the two companies “ignited a revolution in law practice management by bringing to the cloud what had always been a desktop technology.”
While similar in their origin stories, the two companies took different paths in their development. While Port shunned outside investment and kept Rocket Matter relatively small, Clio grew to become the 800-pound gorilla of practice management — a path capped last year by its $250 million Series D funding round, one of the largest investments ever for a legal technology company.
In February, Rocket Matter acquired LexCharge, a payment processing company that specialized in handling payments for legal professionals.
Rocket Matter is a limited liability company headquartered in Boca Raton, Fla. It was cofounded in 2007 by Port and Ariel Jatib. Jatib left the company in 2011.