Corel charts a new path to yet another rebirth

In 2019, the venture firm KKR acquired Corel Corporation. According to a story by Ingrid Lunden in TechCrunch, KKR could have paid billion dollars or so to Corel’s previous owner, Vector Capital, also a venture capital company. Vector Capital had an interest in Corel since 2003. The price tag is a bit surprising, but not totally. Corel has been a seemingly pathological acquisitor all through its existence. It has gone public, and it has gone back to being a privately held company (somewhat similar to Dell). When Corel was last private, it reported perfectly respectable annual revenues of $298 million