Thoma Bravo’s Hyland Software, an enterprise content management software vendor, acquired privately-held eWebHealth that marked a commitment by the PE owner to continually grow the firm.

The deal is the second one in less than a year for Hyland; its chief executive, A.J. Hyland, said dealmaking represents a salient portion of the company’s growth strategy. In 2009, the company bought Valco Data Systems, another healthcare IT provider.

Terms of the deal were not publicized and no executives were available to speak by press time. Seth Boro from Thoma Bravo worked on the deal.

Payment services deals have emerged as private equity firms seek financial services deals that are small enough to buy and roll up even in a prohibitive financing environment; Marlin Equity Partners bought Unisys Corp. pay processing assets and rename the entity Burroughs Payment Systems to make future deals. Also, earlier this month, Virtusa Corp., the listed, Massachusetts-based global IT services firm completed its deal to buy ConVista Consulting, a pay processor.

More examples of PE’s interest in the sector include Parthenon Capital Partners’ buying a stake in loanDepot, an online mortgage originator; Navigation Capital getting into PrePaid Solutions and Aquiline Capital Partners also leading an investment in Belgian payments system Clear2Pay NV.

Other examples of buyers getting involved in healthcare opportunities includes EDG Partners’ launch of a second fund, seeking $150 million, earlier this year for healthcare deals. Also, Harris Corp., in November 2009, bought privately-held Patriot Technologies, which provides healthcare information services for federal clients.