PTC and TPG announced last night that PTC is selling Kepware and ThingWorx to TPG to “provide the businesses with additional capital and expertise to accelerate growth and further their leadership to meet the evolving connectivity and data needs of manufacturing organizations.” In its earnings call with analysts, PTC said, “We could receive up to $725 million in total cash consideration if certain thresholds are achieved. We expect either $565 million or $600 million upfront, depending on performance during the period up to close. The $125 million future potential earn-out is based on criteria related to a potential future transaction by the buyer.” That’s not a bad return on a business that wasn’t growing and generated only $200 million in revenue in the fiscal year just ended. (See slide 6 in the deck here.)

PTC President Neil Barua said, “this agreement with TPG [will enable us to] increase our focus on delivering our Intelligent Product Lifecycle vision for customers through our core CAD, PLM, ALM, and SLM offerings and the ongoing adoption of AI and SaaS [because we can concentrate our] resources and investments in these areas … we are confident we can help our customers address their most pressing challenges by enabling them to fully leverage the value of their product data and to transform each stage of the product lifecycle.”

TPG partner Art Heidrich said he sees “a generational opportunity to evolve and progress manufacturing through solutions that bridge the gap between operational and information technology. Kepware and ThingWorx are driving the digital transformation of the shop floor, helping customers manage and improve their production processes. We are excited to partner with PTC and look forward to supporting the next chapter of growth for these software platforms.”

In case you’ve forgotten, ThingWorx is the IoT platform PTC acquired in 2013 for $112 million (plus an earn-out of up to $18 million; not sure what happened with that). ThingWorx was, at the time, a toolkit touted as doing everything from managing intelligent chicken coops to helping deliver more consistent-quality beer — but the plan was to make PTC a major player in the then-emerging Internet of Things. It struggled over time as the early entrant faced more installation-ready IoT products. PTC acquired Kepware in 2015 for $100 million to enhance its overall IoT offering by adding Kepware’s industrial connectivity software, which simplified data collection, monitoring, and control. In recent years, product sales have stagnated, dragging down PTC’s overall financial performance.

TPG isn’t new to our PLMish world. Formerly known as Texas Pacific Group, TPG acquired PlanView (which I believe it still owns), Intergraph, and probably others. In September, it announced that it would acquire GE Vernova’s Proficy manufacturing software business. It knows this space and what to do to be successful in it.

It’s important to note that both companies say that the impact on customers will be negligible in the short term. They expect “business as usual” “until the closing, with roadmaps and deployments continuing as planned.” And that closing is likely to be in the first half of calendar 2026.

TL;DR. PTC has often been rumored to be for sale, in part or in whole. ThingWorx and Kepware are solid offerings that just didn’t fit with the PTC of today; when acquired, they were part of PTC’s “shiny new thing” approach —CAD is dead, let’s try PLM. Oh, that’s not cool enough —let’s try IoT, and so on— ultimately slowing overall growth and affecting profitability. Sharpening the focus on its core (and still definitely cool) CAD, PLM, ALM, and SLM will allow PTC to really address its users’ needs.