Serent Capital, a San Francisco-based private equity firm focused on investing in fast-growing software and services businesses, has acquired Real Green, a leading software and marketing provider primarily serving the lawn care and landscaping industries.
Real Green’s solution provides a complete operational management and marketing service solution for businesses ranging from small startups to international franchise operations. Real Green’s platform provides an integrated and automated solution to enriching and extracting customer and marketing data. Real Green started with the lawn care industry and expanded to include industries as diverse as pest control and real estate. They currently serve thousands of customers in the United States, Canada, and the United Kingdom.
“Since inception, Real Green has focused on one thing – improving lawn care companies’ and other service providers’ ability to manage their backend systems and serve their customers. Real Green was the first to develop software to aid in managing and growing a lawn care business, a concept that started a service-industry software revolution. Our Service Assistant, Mobile Live, and Route Assistant products are leading examples of how we help our customers to do more with what they have” said Joe Kucik, CEO of Real Green.
He continued, “As we continue to scale, we wanted to bring on an investment partner who could offer the set of resources and expertise that will enable the next phase of our growth plan. We feel that the capability Serent Capital brings is suited to helping us capture the opportunities ahead, while maintaining a steadfast focus on delivering strong value and service to our customers.”
“We have spent several years looking for the right platform investment in the field service. We believe Real Green is the leader in software and marketing services for lawn care companies, and we are tremendously impressed by the business Joe and his team have built” said Lance Fenton, Partner at Serent Capital. “We are thrilled to have the opportunity to collaborate with the Real Green management team to drive continued product innovation and growth.”
Real Green will be adding three independent directors to their Board of Directors, starting with Dave Dutch and Romir Bosu. Dave brings deep expertise in payments processing and cloud-based SaaS products. He is a seasoned executive based in Michigan serving on other boards in a similar capacity. Romir has extensive experience working with high-growth software businesses and implementing payment processing capabilities through his work at Nadavon Capital Partners. Romir was formerly a board member at PayLease, a payments company serving the apartment rental market, and serves as on the board of Club Speed, Inc., Capsilon, and is the Lead Director for another Serent business, BirchStreet Systems.
Serent’s investment in Real Green represents its eighth investment in the field service industry. Prior Serent field services investments include Next Gear (2016), Luxor CRM (2017), ClientRunner (2016), MICA (2017), Moisture Mapper (2018), and CoConstruct (2018).
About Real Green
Walled Lake, MI-based Real Green is a global software company that began as a lawn care company in 1984. It has owned, operated and cultivated multiple service companies for more than 30 years. Thousands of companies worldwide use Service Assistant. Real Green continues to develop innovative technology and marketing solutions to help customers manage and grow their businesses in the most efficient, cost-effective ways possible. It employs a team of dedicated and knowledgeable professionals with the goal of providing customers with the most current technology and the widest range of available features. Helping to make clients as successful as possible, Real Green Systems provides a competitive edge with its innovative business operation software and advanced marketing tools.
About Serent Capital
Serent Capital invests in growing businesses that have developed compelling solutions that address their customers’ needs. As those businesses grow and evolve, the opportunities and challenges that they face change with them. Principals at Serent Capital have firsthand experience at capturing those opportunities and navigating these difficulties through their experiences as CEOs, strategic advisors, and board members to successful growing businesses. By bringing its expertise and capital to bear, Serent helps growing businesses thrive.