Curious buys software companies with $2M to $10M in ARR, in cash, closing within 60 days. Five so far, and we still operate all of them. This page is the SaaS version of that: exactly which metrics we read, what we do with the product after close, and what we don't need you to fix first.
Not the reasons a banker writes down. The ones founders actually say out loud on a first call, and none of them are a verdict on the company you built.
Software compounds hard early and then settles into something steadier. Fifteen percent a year is a good business and a poor venture story, and at some point those two facts start pulling in opposite directions. The company did not get worse. It got finished growing the way it was going to grow.
Raising again means a new preference stack above you, a bigger number to clear before the common stock sees anything, and another five years committed to clearing it. For a lot of companies at this size the arithmetic stopped working two rounds ago. What reaches the common stock.
The thing that makes SaaS worth buying is that the revenue arrives whether or not the founder is in the room. Service businesses sell at a discount because the owner is the product. Yours is not, which is why this is a real market and not a favour.
Renewals, support rotas, SOC 2, a hiring plan, someone else's roadmap meeting. It is a different role from the one that made the first version, and wanting the first job back is a legitimate reason to hand over the second.
One customer at thirty percent of ARR, or one integration you do not control, or one channel that sends most of the signups. Fixing it needs capital and time you would rather not spend, and a buyer who already owns other software can absorb it.
A number in your account today beats a larger number that depends on eight things going right over a decade. That is not a lack of belief in the company. It is a reasonable read on risk you have been carrying by yourself for years.
We are not generalists who happen to have bought some software. The model only works on a particular kind of business, and SaaS at this size is that kind.
The honest tradeoff: an owner who plans to hold for decades will not pay the number a strategic buyer pays when the fit is perfect, because we are pricing what the company earns rather than what it saves someone else.
Capital with no fund clock needs predictability far more than it needs upside. A subscription base that renews is the closest thing to a plannable business there is, which is exactly what lets us hold rather than flip.
Software gross margins mean support can be answered properly, the roadmap can be funded, and nobody has to strip the company to service debt. We buy with cash on the balance sheet, so there is no lender setting the operating plan.
A software company does not stop the day the founder does. That grace period is what makes a calm handover possible instead of a scramble, and it is why we can let founders leave on the timeline they want rather than the one we need.
Below roughly $10M in ARR you are too small for most private equity and too unglamorous for venture. That gap is the whole reason we exist, and it is why a good company at $3M can find itself with three bad options and no good one.
Five software companies bought, and we still operate all five. The reason we are specific about metrics further down this page is that we have had to run the businesses behind them, not just underwrite them.
Both are software with recurring revenue, and that is roughly where the similarity stops. The same eight metrics come next, but what counts as a good answer changes depending on who is paying you. Here is where we read them differently.
Annual logo retention and net revenue retention. Expansion inside existing accounts can carry a flat new-business number for years, and often does.
Monthly cohort survival, read at month twelve and month twenty-four. Headline churn tells you almost nothing until you have seen how the curve flattens.
Customer concentration. We look at the top five as a share of ARR, and at whether the largest contract renews in the twelve months after close.
Channel concentration. One ad account, one app store, or one search ranking supplying most of the signups is the same risk wearing different clothes.
Pipeline and sales capacity. The question is how much of growth is repeatable process and how much is the founder still closing the big ones personally.
Paid payback period and the organic share of new signups. A business that stops growing when spend stops is priced as a marketing operation.
Usually real. Contracts, procurement and switching costs mean a considered increase tends to hold, and under-pricing is common and fixable.
Thinner. Consumers leave over a few dollars, so price changes are tested rather than announced and the upside is smaller.
Fewer tickets, higher stakes. Named contacts, uptime commitments, and the occasional security questionnaire that takes a week.
High volume, low individual value. Needs real tooling and staffing, and it is the cost line most often understated in a seller's model.
Typically the higher end of our range at the same revenue, because contracted revenue with expansion is easier to underwrite over a long hold.
Typically lower at the same revenue, and it moves most on cohort durability. A B2C business with flat two-year cohorts prices close to a B2B one.
Every buyer says they look at the whole picture. Here is ours, written down, with the thresholds. Pick your revenue band and the column changes, because what matters at $2.4M is not what matters at $9M.
The middle of our range, and where most of our acquisitions land.
It sets the range, and it's the only number with a hard floor and ceiling attached.
We want 90% or better, or a clear reason it dipped that you can point at.
Retention is the whole thesis. A business that keeps its customers can be owned for decades.
75% and up, and we'll want to see the hosting bill by environment.
Margin decides whether the company can fund its own roadmap without a new cheque.
Anything from flat to 30% works. Linear growth over exponential.
We're not underwriting a hockey stick. We're underwriting the next twenty years.
Under 20% is comfortable. We'll read the renewal terms on anything larger.
One customer at a third of revenue is a risk we price, not a reason to walk.
A team that can run a week without the founder in the room.
We're buying an operating company. The people who know how it works are the asset.
Documented deploys and a test suite that runs. Legacy is fine, undocumented is expensive.
We've inherited worse. What we need is to understand it, not to admire it.
Assignable customer contracts and no exclusivity you forgot about.
This is the only part of diligence that can genuinely kill a deal late.
We're vertical agnostic and welcome all situations, even messy ones. Founders talk themselves out of a conversation over things we price in without blinking.
Calm over urgent. A business that has held the same customers for four years is a feature to us.
Half-migrated stacks are the normal state of software. We've operated several.
Concentration is a price input. It's rarely the reason we say no.
Founders decide whether to stay with the business or hand it off. Wanting out is an answer, not a red flag.
We aren't scared of messy or distressed situations. Send the real numbers and we'll tell you fast.
Preferred stock and investor consents are mechanics we've handled. See the venture backed page.
The honest version, because this is the question founders actually lose sleep over. We are not buying a customer list to migrate onto someone else's platform. We're buying a software company to operate, which means the product keeps shipping.
Linear growth over exponential. Sustainable over unsustainable. Calm over urgent.
No sunset, no forced migration onto a shared platform, no rebrand into a suite. The company keeps its name and its roadmap.
We buy companies because of how they run, not in spite of it. Nobody is cut to make a model work, because there is no model that needs it.
Most founders under-price for years. That's usually the first thing we work on together, and it's the least disruptive thing we can do for the business.
Each acquisition is framed in decades. There is no fund clock, no resale, and nobody above us asking when the exit lands.
Watching what Curious has built has been validating in a lot of ways. UserVoice was 17 years of my life, and knowing it landed with someone who sees the long-term value in "overlooked" companies rather than just asset-stripping or quick flips means a lot.
The decades-long orientation is exactly right. The best software companies aren't always the ones chasing hypergrowth, they're the ones that solve real problems for real customers and build sustainable businesses around that.
We were specifically looking for a team with the operating experience to take the business to the next level. This is where the "Builders, not bankers" mantra of Curious was a perfect fit.
Not only did we find the right home for the Convox team, but we also knew that the business would continue to thrive and our customers would be in the experienced hands of operators who would invest in and improve the business and its products.
We work off ARR, retention and margin rather than a single posted multiple, and the range we send always shows the maths. If a strategic buyer will pay more for your company than we will, we'll tell you that, because a bidding war we lose is a worse use of your quarter than an honest no.
Send the shape of the business and we'll come back with a range or a straight no, within two business days.
Curious is a long-term holding company that buys and grows software companies with empathy.
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