Neuberger Berman Growth Investment In Sphera Points To Future Upside In The Operational Resilience Software Market

On September 3, Sphera announced that it has raised fresh capital from Neuberger Berman Capital Solutions following the launch of a funding process in April, when Blackstone announced it was exploring a sale of the business at a $3 billion valuation. Blackstone acquired Sphera for $1.4 billion in July 2021 from Genstar Capital, and continues to be the majority shareholder of the EHS software vendor, which has succeeded against a backdrop of economic turbulence and sustainability policy headwinds in both the US and Europe. Behind the curtain, a number of other private equity owners of EHS and sustainability software firms have failed to conclude transactions in 2024 and 2025 for a variety of reasons, including over-optimistic valuations and missed sales forecasts.

Why has this deal gone ahead when others have failed? Since the purchase of the business by Blackstone in 2021, Sphera’s founding CEO Paul Marushka has led a forward-looking strategy to diversify revenues into new product lines and expand market access into major economies. The firm now serves 8,500 customers in 100 countries. Building on its heritage in enterprise-class EHS software, Sphera also has product lines across process safety management, product compliance, supply chain resilience and product life cycle assessment. Taken together, these solutions help Sphera customers to achieve operational resilience across risks relating to products, worker safety and sustainability. In a landscape of heightened economic and geo-political uncertainty, Sphera offers a broad portfolio of digital capabilities aligned with the resilience mega-trend.

This deal doesn’t indicate that it will be plain sailing for other EHS, sustainability and supply chain software assets. Small vendors that raised funding to develop products tackling a single regulation – such as the US federal climate disclosure rule or the EU CSDDD – won’t get fresh capital. EHS software vendors centred on North America and Europe will struggle to convince investors that they can deliver more than 10% growth. Not an enticing prospect. And upside growth prospects from sustainability use cases have dimmed significantly in 2025. As smaller, loss-making players hit the wall, larger profitable firms like Sphera are set to benefit from mega-trends like physical climate risk, supply chain dislocation and industrial agility.