Peak Technology Partners

Despite the supposed “SaaSpocalypse,” strategic M&A in enterprise SaaS has surged. IBM just paid $11B for Confluent at a 34% premium. That wasn't LBO math. That was synergy value. PE sponsors model debt service, entry multiples, and exit targets. Their math is disciplined, but it has a ceiling. A strategic with a genuine capability gap in your category can rationally clear that ceiling. Founders who understand what their business is worth inside a strategic's ecosystem (not just on a sponsor's model) are the ones who walk away with the better number. The right question isn't just "what would a PE firm pay?" It's also: "Who has a capability gap my product fills?" Full post: https://lnkd.in/gifmNP9K #SoftwareMA #FounderLiquidity #PrivateEquity #B2BSoftware #TechMA

The Nasdaq is down 21%+ this year. Public software stocks have lost roughly $1 trillion in market cap. PE-backed software M&A just hit a record 11.8x median entry multiple. Both of those things are true at the same time. Founders who confuse public market sentiment with private deal dynamics are making an expensive mistake. The buyers who matter aren't deterred by the selloff. They're energized by it. New post on what's actually happening in private software M&A right now, and how to tell which side of the flight-to-quality split your business is on. https://lnkd.in/gV-B9vtq #SoftwareMA #FounderLiquidity #PrivateEquity #B2BSoftware #SaaSMA

The Nasdaq is down 21%+ this year. Public software stocks have lost roughly $1 trillion in market cap. PE-backed software M&A just hit a record 11.8x median entry multiple. Both of those things are true at the same time. Founders who confuse public market sentiment with private deal dynamics are making an expensive mistake. The buyers who matter aren't deterred by the selloff. They're energized by it. New post on what's actually happening in private software M&A right now, and how to tell which side of the flight-to-quality split your business is on. https://lnkd.in/gV-B9vtq #SoftwareMA #FounderLiquidity #PrivateEquity #B2BSoftware #SaaSMA

As a PE fund's capital ages, the pressure to deploy the capital grows. More than 40% of global PE dry powder has been undeployed for two or more years. Most founders have no idea which buyers walking into their process are operating under that kind of pressure. The information is largely public. Fund vintage years are traceable. Portfolio cadence is observable. Process behavior is a tell. A founder who knows a buyer is in year four of their fund has leverage that has nothing to do with their own financials. New post on how to read the signals, and how to use them. https://lnkd.in/ge6pTiT3 #SoftwareMA #FounderLiquidity #PrivateEquity #B2BSoftware #SaaSMA

As a PE fund's capital ages, the pressure to deploy the capital grows. More than 40% of global PE dry powder has been undeployed for two or more years. Most founders have no idea which buyers walking into their process are operating under that kind of pressure. The information is largely public. Fund vintage years are traceable. Portfolio cadence is observable. Process behavior is a tell. A founder who knows a buyer is in year four of their fund has leverage that has nothing to do with their own financials. New post on how to read the signals, and how to use them. https://lnkd.in/ge6pTiT3 #SoftwareMA #FounderLiquidity #PrivateEquity #B2BSoftware #SaaSMA

Two software companies sold last quarter. Similar ARR, similar growth rates, similar end markets. One closed at 11x revenue. The other closed at 3x. Same market. Completely different outcomes. And the gap is widening. The SaaS valuation market isn't one market anymore. It's two running simultaneously, driven by flight to quality — a dynamic that follows every major correction and every tectonic technology shift. The post-2022 rate reset and the arrival of AI as a structural threat to software business models are pulling the distribution apart fast. Buyers have stopped spreading capital across the landscape. They're concentrating at the top. Three factors are doing the heaviest lifting in diligence right now: Rule of 40, Gross Dollar Retention above 85%, and a proven AI moat. Behind all three sits a harder question every sophisticated buyer is pressing: what does this company have that an AI-native competitor couldn't build in 24 months? The average SaaS multiple is a fiction right now. It's averaging two completely different markets into one number. The premium cohort is active and drawing competitive processes. The question is whether your company is positioned to access it. Full post: https://lnkd.in/gCbxdxHK #SoftwareMA #FounderLiquidity #PrivateEquity #B2BSoftware #SaaSMA

The same week software stocks shed $2 trillion in market cap, Thoma Bravo quietly closed a $12.3 billion take-private. Not announced. Closed. The market was panicking. Thoma Bravo was executing. That contrast isn't coincidence — it's a playbook. PE firms with deep software expertise and $1.2 trillion in aging dry powder don't mourn market dislocations. They accelerate into them. For founders running durable B2B software businesses, February's selloff wasn't a warning. It was a window. We break down what actually happened, why PE reads this moment differently than public investors, and three things founders should be doing right now. Full post: https://lnkd.in/gNxHn8tW #SaaSMA #FounderLiquidity #PrivateEquity #SoftwareMA #B2BSoftware

The same week software stocks shed $2 trillion in market cap, Thoma Bravo quietly closed a $12.3 billion take-private. Not announced. Closed. The market was panicking. Thoma Bravo was executing. That contrast isn't coincidence — it's a playbook. PE firms with deep software expertise and $1.2 trillion in aging dry powder don't mourn market dislocations. They accelerate into them. For founders running durable B2B software businesses, February's selloff wasn't a warning. It was a window. We break down what actually happened, why PE reads this moment differently than public investors, and three things founders should be doing right now. Full post: https://lnkd.in/gNxHn8tW #SaaSMA #FounderLiquidity #PrivateEquity #SoftwareMA #B2BSoftware

In the air again today, flying to a full day kickoff meeting with a new client. I love these meetings because we finally make that meaningful leap from “prospect” to “client partner.” This is where the work really gets interesting. What most people don’t realize about a great M&A outcome is that it’s not determined the day offers come in. It’s determined months earlier, in meetings exactly like the one I’m headed to today. Bruce Wasserstein (great book, no matter how dated) once wrote (with a nod to Sun Tzu) that the best deals are won before anyone sits at the negotiating table. The preparation phase is where you shape the eventual transaction. And in a kickoff meeting, that means getting granular on value drivers and designing a process with the highest certainty of close while avoiding valuation leakage. The founders we work with have spent years building something remarkable. Our job coming out of these kickoff meetings is to make sure the process we design does justice to what they’ve built by finding the right value framework, the right narrative, and the right structure to capture every dollar of value that’s there. It’s a great day to go to work. #dealadvisory #Peak Technology Partners #ArtofWasserstein #saas #ITServices

Is SaaS dead? No, but AI has arrived. The data shows customers are rebudgeting and reevaluating their various SaaS subscriptions.   That’s a threat if a product is optional and/or redundant with LLMs. Research suggests that when founders and SaaS businesses make value obvious, measurable, and repeatable, renewals become far easier for an internal champion to defend.   For a more in-depth discourse on the topic, including how founders can respond, read our newest blog post here: https://lnkd.in/g4wekii2   #SaaS #B2BSaaS #Founders #GoToMarket #CustomerRetention #Renewals #NRR #UnitEconomics #CustomerSuccess #AI