Insights

Short, sourced guides on finding buyers, reading M&A signals and getting ready to sell. No hype.

Do you need an investment banker to sell your startup?

Sometimes. A banker's job in a real sale is to widen the list of buyers, run the timetable and push the price. In Olo's 2025 sale, the banker contacted 36 possible buyers, 30 signed confidentiality agreements, four made offers, and the price rose from $10.00 to $10.25 a share in the last two days. Whether that is worth a fee in the millions depends on how many real buyers you already have and how many you can reach yourself.

What buyers check in due diligence on a software company

Buyers check what they are paying for and what could go wrong once they own it: who owns the code, how customer data is handled, how much revenue sits with a few customers, and which contracts restrict the business. The 2025 merger agreement between Adobe and Semrush turns each of those into a written promise by the seller. Adobe's checking took about six weeks from data-room access to signing.

How a software company is valued in an acquisition

Mostly by a multiple of revenue, picked by comparing the company with similar listed companies and recent deals, then checked against other methods. The multiple is a judgment, not a formula. In a real 2026 sale, one banker's methods gave per-share values from $3.51 to $9.51, and the buyer paid $7.40.

How to find potential acquirers for your SaaS company

Start with the deals that have already happened, then widen the circle to the companies that sell to your customers and the ones that would gain from owning your product. For each name, write one sentence on why they would want you. If you can't, cross them off. Ten names you can explain are worth more than a hundred you can't.

How M&A buyers are identified from public signals

You can spot likely buyers from public information by watching what listed companies file when they do deals, who is building a stake in whom, and whether a company can afford to pay. It won't tell you who will buy you. It shows who is active, who has the money and when the timing looks right.

How Brazilian tech startups can prepare for an international sale

Brazilian tech startups can get better prices from international buyers than from local ones, but only if the company looks global: a problem that matters outside Brazil, a founding team that thinks internationally, and a structure that makes due diligence easier. Buyers have also become more demanding in recent years, so preparation matters more than it used to.