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Medallia

Customer experience softwareUSA
New to Unitard
βœ‚οΈ Markdown
PeakΒ $6.4 BillionToday
~-100%
from peak
  1. πŸ¦„
    Became a unicorn
    2015
  2. πŸ“ˆ
    Peak valuation
    $6.4 Billion ’21
  3. πŸ’”
    Became a Unitard
    2026
  4. πŸ’Έ
    Last valuation
    ~$0
Current status
Thoma Bravo equity (~$5.1B) written to ~zero; creditors (Blackstone, Apollo, KKR) took control, 2026

The rise & fall

7 moments Β· 2001–2026

The key moments, with employee sentiment along the way.

2001
Founded
Borge Hald and Amy Pressman build customer-experience survey software for large enterprises.
Wikipedia
2015
Joins the unicorn club
A Sequoia-led round values the CX software maker above $1B.
TechCrunch
2021
The peak: Thoma Bravo's $6.4B buyout$6.4B
The leveraged take-private loads Medallia with roughly $2.8B of debt.
Reuters
2023–25
The debt clock runs
Once pandemic-era payment-in-kind relief expires, interest outruns earnings and the equity slips underwater.
Reuters
From the inside Β· Glassdoor reviews, 2022–25
Glassdoor reviews charted the squeeze from inside: repeated layoff rounds, four CEOs in four years, benefits pared back, and laid-off staff describing vested shares bought back for nothing β€” an irony reviewers didn't miss at a company selling employee-experience software.
2026
Equity wiped β€” out of the club
Thoma Bravo writes its ~$5.1B stake down to virtually nothing; creditors led by Blackstone, Apollo and KKR take control.
Reuters

πŸ’¬ entries paraphrase anonymous, unverified reviews posted publicly on Glassdoor β†—; dated facts carry their source.

How it happened

Medallia builds customer- and employee-experience software for large enterprises. After a 2019 IPO it was taken private by Thoma Bravo in a $6.4B leveraged buyout in 2021, which loaded it with roughly $2.8B of debt; interest outran earnings once pandemic-era payment-in-kind relief expired, leaving the equity underwater. In 2026 Thoma Bravo wrote its ~$5.1B stake down to virtually zero and ceded control to creditors led by Blackstone, Apollo and KKR.

Source: Reuters; Yahoo Finance

Founders & leadership

  • Leslie Stretch
    CEO (2018-2024, IPO + Thoma Bravo buyout)
    Now Board Member at Human InterestLinkedIn β†—
  • Borge Hald
    co-founder & CEO (bootstrapped it for a decade before taking outside money)
    Now Investor at BerrypickLinkedIn β†—
  • Amy Pressman
    co-founder & president (married to Hald; they founded it together in 2001)
    LinkedIn β†—

Current roles as self-reported on LinkedIn, retrieved 2026-08-21. See our methodology.

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