Black Dragon Capital signs agreement with Belden to acquire Grass Valley

The venture capital firm, led by former Avid CEO Louis Hernandez Jr., plans to accelerate the migration to software-based broadcast systems.

Black Dragon Capital has completed an agreement with Belden for the acquisition of Grass Valley. The deal, which will be finalized during the first quarter of 2020, will transfer full control of all Grass Valley assets to Black Dragon, which plans to leverage Grass Valley's intellectual property and talent to drive innovation and lead the industry migration towards a software-based future.

Black Dragon does not foresee immediate changes in the operational management structure of Grass Valley and Tim Shoulders will continue in his role as president.

The founder and CEO of Black Dragon, Louis Hernandez, Jr. comments that “we see a tremendous opportunity for transformation in the media technology market and believe that Grass Valley is ideally positioned to lead the market through these changes.”

"Under Belden's leadership, Grass Valley's solutions portfolio has expanded and the business has developed a discipline that places it in the top quartile of the market in profitability. Black Dragon's experience leading companies through digital transitions will allow Grass Valley to accelerate the next step in its evolution, bringing more innovative products to market more quickly," he added.

During his time as CEO of Avid, Hernández led the innovative strategy of transitioning the company's core product offerings to solutions that enabled easy and simple sharing of content and distribution of workflows. Black Dragon sees Grass Valley as a platform to accelerate the industry's move toward its digital future, increasing investment in technologies and systems that enable new software-based services and pay-as-you-go business models.

Black Dragon, unlike some private equity firms, takes an advisory approach to the companies it invests in, and offers a number of proprietary tools, such as The Black Dragon Playbook, a set of guidelines to create sustainable and market-leading companies. Additionally, the company has an extensive roster of advisors with more than a century of combined experience in engineering, content creation, business management and technology leadership in the media space.

Tim Shoulders, president of Grass Valley, highlights that "Grass Valley has led the market in the transition from SDI to IP and has been diligently pivoting our product lines towards cloud-based and SaaS solutions. Black Dragon brings the experience and vision that will allow us to accelerate this transition for the benefit of our customers who are looking for more robust and flexible models for content production and delivery." “We are excited to take our customers with us on this journey.”

From the buy side they state that "Grass Valley customers who invest in current product lines will experience a seamless transition. Grass Valley will maintain full control of the supply chain and operational systems to enable continued support without interruptions."