Medallia, the US-based enterprise software company specialising in customer and employee experience management, has agreed a recapitalisation deal with its lenders that will transfer ownership from private equity firm Thoma Bravo to a group led by Blackstone, Apollo, and FS KKR Capital Corp. The transaction will substantially reduce the company's outstanding debt and provide $150 million in new capital.

Medallia was founded in 2001 and listed on the New York Stock Exchange in 2019 before Thoma Bravo took it private in 2021. A new executive team was appointed roughly 18 months ago and has since restructured internal operations and refocused the business on artificial intelligence as its primary commercial proposition. Throughout that time of change, the business has continued to turn a profit.

The recapitalisation is designed to accelerate an existing $500 million product investment commitment the company had already announced. Chief executive Mark Bishof said the deal would increase the pace of AI-led development rather than alter the direction the business had already taken. "The transformation of Medallia has been well underway," he stated. "What changes today is the pace."

Blackstone's global head of private credit strategies, Brad Marshall, described Medallia as a profitable business with a strong record of serving large corporations and said the firm was confident in the company under its new capital structure. The incoming ownership group is expected to bring strategic relationships and global resources to support product development and market expansion, alongside the direct financial investment.

Medallia has set out plans to extend its generative AI and automation capabilities across its platform. The company's stated aim is to allow organisations to detect emerging patterns more quickly, assess potential business impact, and coordinate responses at scale without requiring manual intervention at each stage. It also intends to build deeper integrations with contact centre software, customer relationship management systems, workflow tools, and what the company describes as agentic AI ecosystems.

Medallia's current customer base includes Mayo Clinic Laboratories, Mazda North America, and Santander Bank, all of which have described using the platform to run their experience management programmes.

The transaction is expected to close before the end of the year, pending regulatory approvals and standard closing conditions. Medallia said there would be no disruption to its operations, and that customers, employees, and partners should not anticipate any material impact during the period between announcement and completion.