The privacy technology landscape is undergoing a seismic shift. OneTrust, the Atlanta-based privacy management platform that dominates enterprise compliance, is exploring a private equity transaction that could exceed $10 billion.
For the thousands of privacy professionals, DPOs, and compliance leaders who rely on OneTrust daily, this development raises critical questions about pricing, product direction, and whether it's time to reevaluate your privacy tech stack.
This isn't just another funding announcement. It's a signal that privacy technology has matured from a regulatory necessity into a core enterprise software category — one that private equity views as ripe for consolidation. And if history tells us anything about PE-backed software companies, it's that change is coming.
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As of November 2025, OneTrust is in active discussions with multiple private equity firms about a potential sale. The Information first reported these discussions on November 13, 2025, confirming what insiders had been whispering for weeks.
The rumored deal size? North of $10 billion — more than double OneTrust's last official valuation of $4.5 billion from July 2023. That earlier round, led by Generation Investment Management, was actually a down round, marking the company's first valuation decline after years of explosive growth.
Multiple heavyweight PE firms are reportedly circling: Marlin Equity Partners, Vista Equity Partners, Thoma Bravo, Blackstone, KKR, and Silver Lake. Each brings different strategic advantages, but they all see the same thing: a profitable, market-leading platform generating over $550 million in annual recurring revenue with positive free cash flow.
OneTrust didn't need to raise money. Unlike many venture-backed companies burning cash to fuel growth, OneTrust has been operationally profitable while scaling. So why consider a sale now?
The IPO window remains challenging. While OneTrust could eventually go public, the venture-backed software IPO market hasn't returned to its 2020-2021 euphoria. Private equity offers immediate liquidity for founders and early investors while providing capital and expertise to accelerate the next phase of growth.
There's also the strategic timing. Privacy regulations continue proliferating globally — 20+ US states now have comprehensive privacy laws, and enforcement is intensifying. AI governance has emerged as a massive new market adjacent to traditional privacy compliance. OneTrust is well-positioned to capitalize, but doing so requires significant investment in product development, international expansion, and likely acquisitions of smaller competitors.
The privacy tech market recorded 264 regulatory changes globally in May 2025 alone. This regulatory velocity creates both opportunity and complexity for enterprises trying to maintain compliance across jurisdictions.
Add AI governance to the mix, and you have a perfect storm driving demand for comprehensive compliance platforms. The global privacy management software market is projected to grow from $3.72 billion in 2025 to $21.17 billion by 2032 — a compound annual growth rate exceeding 28%.
Private equity firms see a mature, profitable business in a growing market with regulatory tailwinds and high customer switching costs. It's a textbook buyout target.
Enterprise spending on privacy technology has shifted from "nice to have" to "board-level mandate." With 75% of Fortune 100 companies already using OneTrust and over 14,000 customers globally, the market has proven its durability beyond initial GDPR panic buying.
Privacy teams that were once one or two people are now departments of 10-20 professionals managing complex, multi-jurisdictional compliance programs. Customers generating over $100,000 in annual recurring revenue? OneTrust has more than 1,200 of them. Several exceed $1 million annually.
The privacy tech landscape counted 364+ vendors as of the last comprehensive IAPP report. That's too many. Enterprises don't want to integrate seven different point solutions for consent management, data mapping, DSAR automation, vendor risk, and AI governance. They want platforms.
We're watching consolidation happen in real-time. In July 2025, Marlin Equity Partners-backed Didomi acquired rival consent management platform SourcePoint. In October, Veeam acquired Securiti AI for $1.73 billion. Main Capital Partners acquired TrustArc the same month. BigID is reportedly exploring sale talks.
This is the classic "roll-up" strategy private equity executes brilliantly: acquire the market leader, then systematically buy competitors to create an integrated suite.
Private equity firms bring operational playbooks refined across dozens of software acquisitions. They know how to optimize pricing (often upward), streamline product portfolios (sometimes eliminating less profitable features), and drive margin expansion through efficiency gains.
Vista Equity Partners, one of the rumored buyers, exclusively targets enterprise software and has a reputation for operational excellence. Thoma Bravo has acquired cybersecurity and compliance companies like Sophos ($3.8B) and Proofpoint ($12.3B). These firms don't buy companies to maintain the status quo — they buy to transform, scale, and eventually exit at a significant multiple.
Let's be direct: private equity ownership historically correlates with price increases. PE firms acquire companies using significant leverage and expect returns. One of the fastest paths to improved margins? Raising prices on a sticky customer base with high switching costs.
OneTrust already commands premium pricing as the market leader. But post-acquisition, expect more aggressive pricing strategies: steeper annual increases, more expensive feature tiers, and pressure to expand deployments across additional business units or geographies.
If you're approaching renewal, this is the time to negotiate. Lock in multi-year pricing protections. Include contractual caps on annual increases. Ensure your data portability rights are explicitly documented.
Private equity ownership often brings product rationalization. Less profitable features get sunsetted. Overlapping modules from acquired companies get consolidated. Development resources shift toward the highest-revenue opportunities.
OneTrust's platform breadth is both its strength and potential vulnerability. The company offers privacy management, consent tools, third-party risk, GRC capabilities, AI governance, and more. Under PE ownership, which modules receive continued investment? Which get deprioritized?
There's also the innovation pace question. OneTrust has filed over 350 patents and consistently releases new capabilities. PE firms want efficiency, which sometimes means fewer experimental features and more focus on proven revenue drivers.
Operational optimization in PE-owned companies frequently includes support model changes. Self-service portals replace direct access to specialists. Professional services become more expensive or shift to third-party implementation partners. Response times lengthen as teams are "right-sized."
For enterprise customers with complex, multi-jurisdictional privacy programs, support quality matters. Mid-market customers are often most affected—too small to demand white-glove treatment, too complex for pure self-service.
OneTrust has built significant switching costs into its platform. Deep integrations with enterprise IT stacks, customized workflows, trained teams, historical data repositories—migrating away is not trivial.
PE ownership may accelerate this lock-in through increased integration depth and contractual complexity. Before a deal closes, ensure your agreements include robust data export capabilities, clear SLAs for data retrieval, and termination terms that don't penalize migration.
If OneTrust closes a $10+ billion deal, it resets valuation expectations across the privacy tech market. Smaller vendors either become acquisition targets or need to differentiate aggressively. The middle ground—being the "almost as good" alternative to OneTrust—becomes commercially untenable.
Competitors are already seeing opportunity. Some privacy tech vendors report that one-third of new customers previously evaluated or used OneTrust. Post-PE acquisition, that trickle could become a stream as customers seek vendors without the baggage of leveraged buyout economics.
Enterprises have spent years consolidating their compliance tech stacks. The appeal of OneTrust has been "one platform for everything." But what happens when that platform is owned by a PE firm likely to acquire adjacent vendors?
Marlin Equity Partners, a rumored bidder, already owns Didomi and just acquired SourcePoint. If Marlin buys OneTrust, does Didomi get merged in? Do customers on competing consent management platforms face migration pressure?
Independent privacy tech vendors are watching carefully. This is their moment to position as the "founder-led, customer-centric alternative" to mega-platforms controlled by financial buyers. Expect aggressive marketing around flexibility, transparent pricing, and rapid innovation without PE-driven quarterly targets.
Platforms like Secure Privacy, which offer automated privacy governance and multi-region consent management without the enterprise software complexity, are particularly well-positioned. Mid-market companies frustrated by OneTrust's pricing and implementation timelines now have validated alternatives.
Not every OneTrust customer needs to switch. But every privacy leader should assess vendor risk systematically:
Financial stability: Will PE ownership improve or complicate OneTrust's financial health?
Product alignment: Does your usage align with OneTrust's likely strategic priorities post-acquisition?
Pricing trajectory: Can your organization absorb likely price increases over the next 3-5 years?
Support requirements: How dependent are you on human support vs. self-service?
Integration complexity: How deeply embedded is OneTrust in your infrastructure?
Competitive alternatives: Are there platforms that meet your needs at better economics?
Before your next renewal or expansion, ask OneTrust directly:
Also ask internally:
Watch for these signals post-acquisition:
Secure Privacy represents a fundamentally different approach to privacy governance: automated, developer-friendly, and transparent. Rather than the "enterprise suite" model requiring months of implementation and six-figure commitments, Secure Privacy focuses on fast deployment and practical compliance.
The platform handles multi-region consent management, automated cookie compliance, and privacy governance without the complexity. For organizations spending $100K+ annually on OneTrust but using a fraction of its capabilities, Secure Privacy delivers the essentials at a fraction of the cost.
The automation angle matters especially now. Privacy teams are stretched thin managing regulatory complexity. Tools that reduce manual work through intelligent automation free teams to focus on strategic governance rather than checkbox compliance.
The privacy tech market offers legitimate alternatives across different use cases:
TrustArc (now Main Capital Partners-owned) provides comprehensive privacy management with strong international capabilities.
Securiti AI (acquired by Veeam) offers data security, privacy, and AI governance unified in a single platform.
Cookiebot focuses specifically on consent management with strong European market presence and straightforward pricing.
Didomi (Marlin Equity Partners-owned) provides consent and preference management, particularly strong for publishers and digital media.
Here's what matters more than feature checklists: Can the platform actually help you maintain compliance without constant manual intervention?
Real-world compliance means:
The platform with 400 features isn't necessarily better than the one with 40 features that actually work seamlessly.
The privacy tech market is bifurcating: mega-platforms optimized for Fortune 500 complexity, and agile alternatives focused on automation and efficiency. Secure Privacy sits firmly in the latter category.
Automated privacy governance means the platform handles routine compliance tasks without human intervention—scanning for new tracking technologies, updating consent mechanisms as regulations change, processing standard data requests, and flagging genuine risks for human review.
This matters acutely post-OneTrust PE deal. If the market leader becomes more expensive and potentially less customer-centric, alternatives that deliver compliance outcomes without the overhead become increasingly attractive.
One of OneTrust's key value propositions is managing consent across regulatory jurisdictions—GDPR in Europe, CCPA/CPRA in California, LGPD in Brazil, and emerging frameworks across US states and global markets.
Secure Privacy delivers this capability without requiring enterprise-scale implementations. The platform automatically applies appropriate consent standards based on user location, manages preference centers across jurisdictions, and adapts as regulations evolve.
Perhaps the starkest contrast with enterprise platforms: Secure Privacy maintains transparent, predictable pricing. No surprise fees, no mandatory professional services, no complex SKU negotiations.
In a post-PE OneTrust world where pricing pressure is likely, transparent alternatives become more appealing. Privacy leaders can budget accurately, scale without fear of punitive pricing tiers, and avoid the procurement battles that enterprise software negotiations have become.
Was OneTrust acquired or invested in?
As of late November 2025, OneTrust is exploring a potential sale to private equity but no deal has been finalized. Multiple firms are reportedly interested, with rumored valuations exceeding $10 billion. This would be a full acquisition, not a minority investment.
Will customers see price increases?
While nothing is certain until a deal closes, private equity ownership historically correlates with pricing optimization. Customers should prepare for potential price increases and negotiate protections during upcoming renewals.
Does the deal affect GDPR/CCPA compliance functionality?
The core compliance capabilities are unlikely to change immediately. However, product roadmap priorities may shift under PE ownership. Long-term, compliance functionality should remain strong—it's OneTrust's core value proposition.
Should companies consider switching vendors?
Not necessarily. OneTrust remains a capable platform with deep enterprise capabilities. However, organizations should systematically evaluate vendor risk and explore alternatives during renewal cycles. For companies using only basic features at premium pricing, alternatives may deliver better value.
Ready to explore privacy automation that puts compliance outcomes first? Run a free cookie compliance scan or book a privacy automation demo to see how multi-region consent management works without enterprise complexity.
The OneTrust private equity deal signals that privacy has become core enterprise infrastructure. For privacy leaders, your vendor choices matter more than ever. Choose platforms aligned with your organization's scale, budget, and compliance reality — not just the market leader's brand recognition.
