A maintained list of active buyers in the sub-$25M software market, including our competitors and including us, with the criteria each one publishes. Filter by what your company looks like. Where we're not the right buyer, the list will show you who is.
Criteria are as each buyer publishes them. Nothing here is inside information, and none of it is a recommendation. Verify current appetite directly, because it changes.
Software companies, venture backed or bootstrapped, vertical agnostic and open to messy situations. Cash at close within 60 days, no earnouts, founders choose whether to stay.
Profitable internet and software businesses held forever, with a stated preference for founder-run companies that can operate independently.
Bootstrapped B2B SaaS, mostly European, bought to operate long term with a shared services model behind the portfolio.
Bootstrapped SaaS from founders who want out of day-to-day operations, with an emphasis on taking over operations completely.
Consumer and prosumer apps at scale, acquired and rebuilt in-house. Substantially larger deals than the rest of this list.
B2B SaaS bought with operating involvement from a venture equity model, typically with a defined value creation plan.
Enterprise software at scale, using leverage and a standardized operating playbook. Far above the range most founders reading this occupy.
Large-cap software buyouts. Listed for orientation rather than as a realistic buyer for a company under $10M.
A listing marketplace rather than a buyer. Connects sellers to a pool of individual and small institutional acquirers for a commission on close.
Marketplace for online businesses including SaaS, apps and content sites. Broadest reach and the widest quality range of buyers.
Curated marketplace with vetting before listing, weighted toward ecommerce and content but active in software.
Sell-side brokerage for online businesses, staffed by people who have sold their own companies. Fee-based, process-driven.
Including us. Buyers at this size read every inbound email, and the ones that get answered the same day all look similar.
One paragraph: what the product does, who pays for it, ARR, retention, and why you're thinking about a sale. No deck, no teaser, no broker introduction needed. Every buyer on this list reads their own inbound.
Withholding revenue to force a call wastes a week and signals inexperience. A buyer who knows your ARR in the first email can tell you in a day whether there's a conversation.
Before you send anything confidential. A buyer who can't show you where the money is today can't close in sixty days, whatever they say on their website.
Two credible buyers give you a comparison and keep the process private. Ten conversations leak, exhaust you, and rarely produce a better price than two serious ones.
We are on the list above, so here is our entry in full rather than the one line the table gives everyone else. This is what we buy and what we do not, written plainly enough that you can rule us out in a minute if we are wrong for you.
We hold what we buy, funded from our own balance sheet, so there is no financing to arrange after a handshake and no fund clock deciding when your company gets sold again.
The band we operate in. Under $2M the business usually still needs its founder more than it needs a new owner, and we will say so rather than string you along. Over $10M there are buyers who will pay more than we will.
B2B or B2C, any vertical, any stack. What matters is that customers renew without the founder personally holding it together. We are not looking for a particular category and we do not have a thesis you need to fit.
A flat year, a messy cap table, a founder who left, a preference stack that swallows the first several million. None of that ends the conversation. It is usually the reason the conversation is worth having.
We are not a strategic buyer, so if your company is worth far more folded into a competitor's product, take that call first. We will tell you when we think that is the case, and we would rather do it on the first call than the fourth.
A few lines is enough: what the company does, roughly what it earns, and why you are thinking about it now. No deck, no data room, no broker required.
Within two business days, from one of us rather than an analyst. If we are not the right buyer you get told that immediately, along with who we think is.
If it looks like a fit we ask for the eight numbers we read, and you get a range in writing with the arithmetic behind it. Nothing about that requires you to commit to anything.
First call to wire is sixty days, paid in cash at close. If we cannot get comfortable inside sixty days, that is our answer and you have your time back.
Permanent capital holding companies, private equity funds, strategic acquirers, and marketplace buyers. Under $10M in revenue, holdcos and micro private equity do most of the deals. Above $50M, institutional private equity and strategics dominate.
One founder reads every one of these and you will hear back within two business days. If we are not the right buyer we will say so, and we will usually tell you who is.
Curious is a long-term holding company that buys and grows software companies with empathy.
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