Francisco Partners to acquire Weave for $650m; Bain, River Associates and Kainos lead PE’s return to household products

Good morning, PE Hubsters! Rafael Canton here with you for the US edition of the Wire.

We’ll start with a health tech deal. Francisco Partners has agreed to the acquire Weave in a $650 million take-private deal.

Next, we’ll dive into the household products sector. Firms such as River Associates Investments, Bain Capital and Kainos Capital have made deals in the sector recently. We’ll also share some insights from Houlihan Lokey’s household products market update.

Growing AI demand

Let’s start with a deal from Tuesday. Francisco Partners has agreed to the acquisition of Weave in a $650 million take-private transaction. Based in Lehi, Utah, Weave is a patient engagement and payments software business that works with healthcare practices.

“Weave is ideally positioned to capitalize on the healthcare industry’s large and growing demand for AI to help optimize their practices and services,” said Ezra Perlman, co-president at Francisco Partners, in a statement. “Its vertical platform sits at the center of how tens of thousands of practices communicate with their patients and collect revenue, a position that is difficult to build and harder still to replicate.”

The deal is expected to close in the fourth quarter of 2026.

Earlier in this week, I spoke with Dipanjan ‘DJ’ Deb, co-founder and CEO at Francisco Partners, about the San Francisco-based firm’s recent fund close and how its investing in this period of disruption in software. Here’s his take on investing during this AI evolution:

As an investor, has AI fundamentally changed how you evaluate tech businesses, or is it changing what kinds of businesses can become attractive buyout targets?

AI is profound. I think we all need to stop being prisoners of the moment. Before people had electricity, automobiles, trains or cars, the world was different. If you look at history, there’s been huge innovation. We’re going into one of those revolutionary periods right now, and this is the closest thing to the internet, so it is impacting everything.

Every company we look at, we have to see what the potential for AI is in this industry. Will it hurt terminal multiples? Will it help terminal multiples? Can the company be dislocated? We take that into account.

I think we’re sitting on a massive bubble. But just because venture capitalists are saying this is going to change everything, it won’t change everything. Some things won’t change. There will be five or six companies that come out of this that will be multi-trillion-dollar companies just like there were in the last cycle, and I think 90 percent of the companies will lose a ton of money. It may take a little bit longer for the bubble to play out. But the one thing that never changes is human nature. I saw this in 1999 and 2000, and I saw this with the great financial crisis. And I think we’re seeing some of that again.

House in order

Despite challenges from tariff disruptions and inflation, the household products market is on a path towards a rebound in 2026.

Household products span a wide range of categories, including housewares, arts and crafts, cleaning products as well as lawn and garden equipment. Private equity has shown interest in the segment as of late.

Just yesterday, River Associates Investments acquired Diamond Wipes. Based in Chino, California, Diamond Wipes is a maker of disposal wet wipes and personal care products. Diamond serves brands, retailers, and distributors across North America.

Diamond manufactures products across a variety of end markets, including personal care, cosmetics, household, sanitizing and disinfecting, and healthcare.

PE Hub has seen a handful of deals in the household products sector:

• Kainos Capital acquired Super-Sod from Heartwood Partners in June. Based in Charleston, South Carolina, Super-Sod is a provider of sod, seed, soil, and other landscaping solutions.
• In another June deal, Shamrock announced that it made a growth investment in two Atlanta-based companies, CardsHQ, an Atlanta-based sports and trading card company and Sports Card Investor, a content network and data platform for trading card enthusiasts.
• In April, Bain Capital announced an investment in Positec Group. Headquartered in Suzhou, China, Positec is a manufacturer for consumer and professional tool brands including WORX, Rockwell Tools, and Kress

According to Houlihan Lokey’s household products market update, Q2 2026 saw strong M&A momentum with 55 transactions totaling $2.6 billion, as private equity investors targeted tariff-insulated, cash-generative assets.

Matthew Panek, a director in Houlihan Lokey’s Consumer Group, told me the pipeline has picked up.

“A lot of the investor base, both private equity and strategic, has backed off of some of the concerns around tariffs,” said Panek. “Obviously, there’s still a little bit of tariff uncertainty looming around, but we see that evidenced in increased receptivity around durables.”

From 2023 to 2025 the environment had been more tepid, Panek added. “In the back half of 2025 – and really over the first half of 2026 – is when we’ve seen a lot more open up by way of interest and increased demand, particularly from the private equity community.”

A lot of the large- and mid-cap sponsors Houlihan has talked to have been much more risk-on regarding the consumer segment in 2026, according to Panek.

“We’ve had a resonating theme which is that a lot of them had exposure for a period of time to tech, software, and AI,” Panek added. Once those segments got shaken up earlier in the year, sponsors saw an opportunity to rebalance in consumer rather than “than taking bets on software and AI right now because that landscape is changing so quickly.”

That’s it for me. If you have any questions, thoughts, or want to chat about deals in the tech, consumer or sports sectors, please email me at rafael.c@pei.group.

Tomorrow, Craig McGlashan will be with you for the Europe edition of the Wire, while Michael Schoeck will write the US edition. Be on the lookout for Michael’s weekly update of companies coming to market.

Cheers,

Rafael