How to Acquire other Startups for Cheap (28 Examples)

In this article, you will discover how top SaaS CEOs use strategic acquisitions as a powerful growth lever to expand their user base, enter new markets, and drive millions in revenue.

You’ll see 28 real-world examples from founders who have successfully bought, integrated, or sold companies to accelerate their growth trajectory.

You will get a 4-step playbook to execute your own acquisition strategy, backed by over 40 case studies you can use as inspiration.

These examples are from top founders like James Isilay at Cognism, Ryan O’Neil at Curate, and Carson Conant at MediaFly, collected directly from keynotes at Founderpath events.

4 Reasons to Buy:

1. Save time: Acquire a product that might take you a long time to build yourself
2. Save money: Acquire a user base that might be expensive for you to acquire yourself
3. Buy a system: Acquire a startup with a different go to market motion than you (Ex PLG might buy a Sales led tool)
4. Buy a team: You really want to hire someone. They tell you no unless you buy their company.

Acquire a Product:

Example: Lemlist Acquires Note Taking App Claap for $25m Deal Price

Company: Lemlist
Acquired: Claap (call/conversation intelligence)
Deal Price: $25M headline (cash + vendor loan + convertible bonds + earnout)
Terms: ~$5M cash at close, ~$5M vendor loan (seller financing; pay back over time, deferral period discussed), ~$2M in founder convertible bonds (20–30% discount, convertible at a future liquidity event), up to $15M earnout tied to ARR milestones within 3 years.

The Story

Lemlist crossed ~$40M ARR and remains profit-generating (targeting 20–35% EBITDA). The team were heavy Claap users and “fell in love” with the product’s transcription/coaching/CRM-autofill capabilities. Claap sold to the same ICP (sales teams of ~3–50 reps), with similar ACVs and champions (RevOps/sales managers). Claap had strong product/tech DNA but lacked Lemlist-level distribution—creating a classic “under-distributed product” opportunity.

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Deal Structure

• Timeline: First outreach in May → multiple follow-ups → competed against at least two bidders → signed in October.
• At Close (~$15M effective):
  • Cash: ~$5M to founders/investors.
  • Vendor loan: ~$5M seller financing (deferred repayment; earlier discussion references ~3.5% interest with 2-year deferral).
  • Founder incentives: Convertible bonds (~$2M notional) with a 20–30% discount at the time of a future transaction—keeps founders aligned with future Lemlist/Lempire value.
• Earnout: Up to $15M if Claap grows from $2M → $10M ARR within 3 years (before Dec 2028). Some presence-based components plus performance tranches.
• Team: 7 FTEs. Seed-funded historically; near break-even at acquisition; ~10% MoM growth.

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Strategic Rationale

• Perfect ICP overlap: Same buyers, ACVs, and champions → immediate cross-sell.
• Product → Distribution fit: Claap is a “$20M ARR-quality” product trapped at $2M because of distribution; Lemlist can unlock it.
• Data flywheel for outbound: Claap’s transcripts surface “internal intent” signals (names, timelines, systems, counts, objections). Lemlist feeds these into multichannel outreach to raise reply rates and deal velocity.
• Profit-funded M&A: With ~$10M annual profit and strict profitability guardrails (≥20% EBITDA), Lemlist can self-finance creative deals without equity dilution.

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The Results (Planned)

• Launch a unified sales engagement + conversation intelligence motion.
• Enter new markets faster using Claap as the “record → coach → auto-fill → signal” layer.
• Use Lemlist distribution (audience, PLG loops, free tools, community, content) to accelerate Claap beyond its prior growth curve.

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Lessons & Playbook Moves You Can Copy from Lemlist

1. Be a power user first. Falling in love with the product de-risks the buy vs. build call.
2. Win on fit, not just price. Founders picked Lemlist over a bigger AI bidder because of product/team fit and shared roadmap.
3. Use seller financing. A vendor loan defers cash outlay and aligns both sides; pair with a modest interest rate and deferral window.
4. Keep founders motivated post-close. Convertible bonds with a 20–30% discount tie upside to future enterprise value—without setting a valuation today.
5. Tie earnouts to revenue, not vague KPIs. Clear milestone: $10M ARR in 3 years → up to $15M. Easy to measure; easy to pay.
6. Protect cash flow. Maintain 20–35% EBITDA guardrails so M&A doesn’t starve core product and hiring.
7. Buy distribution gaps. Look for “under-distributed” products where your audience/PLG engine is the missing piece.
8. Turn conversations into intent. Mine call transcripts to auto-populate CRM, coach reps, and trigger smarter outreach.
9. Run a competitive, relationship-led process. Start with a cold reach-out, articulate the shared vision, and let the seller benchmark other offers—then win on integration conviction.

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Watch the Full Interview: Lemlist CEO: We Paid $25M to Acquire Claap, Here’s the Deal Structure (YouTube).

Example: Derek O’Connell Acquires Inventory Planner for 3.1x Revenue

Company: BrightPearl
Acquired: Inventory Planner
Deal Price: ~$13 million (3.1x revenue multiple)
Terms: 70% cash upfront, 30% based on technical remediation milestones

The Story: Derek O’Connell was CEO of BrightPearl, an Austin-based retail back-office software provider. When they set out to acquire Inventory Planner in August 2021, the target company was doing $4.5 million in revenue growing at 70%.

“The business was pre-scale,” Derek explained. “They were a technology-only team, great guys, but they couldn’t answer how to get to $10 million or $50 million. That’s where we came in.”

Deal Structure:

• Multiple: 3.1x revenue (because they were sub-scale)
• Payment: 70% cash upfront, 30% upon completing technical remediation
• Strategic fit: Better together story – BrightPearl needed their inventory planning capabilities

Why This Multiple? “Because they were pre-scale and technology-only, we paid around 3.1 times revenue. If they’d been at scale, it would have been higher.”

The Results: Less than a year after acquiring Inventory Planner, BrightPearl itself was acquired by Sage for $360 million. The Inventory Planner acquisition added $4.5 million to their $25.5 million organic revenue, helping them hit the $30 million milestone that made them attractive to Sage.

Key Takeaway: Look for companies with great products pointed in the wrong direction. If you have the go-to-market expertise they lack, you can negotiate a lower multiple and create massive value.

Watch Nathan Latka’s interview with Derek OConnell

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Acquire a Go To Market (GTM) Motion

Example: James Isilay (Cognism) Acquires Casper in France

Company: Cognism
Acquired: Casper
Deal Price: Undisclosed (cash + earnout structure)
Terms: Pure cash transaction (no equity) with milestone-based earnouts

The Story: James Isilay, CEO of Cognism (a B2B sales intelligence provider), identified a problem: they were losing micro and SMB customers at 40% retention rates. Meanwhile, Casper, a PLG data provider in France, retained similar customers at 110%+ net retention.

“We had tried to build PLG internally but it hadn’t worked out,” James explained. “We really needed to acquire that PLG expertise and have a part of our organization that was really good at it.”

Deal Structure:

• Timeline: September 2021 (initial contact) → March 2022 (closed)
• Structure: Cash payments at different milestones (earnout structure)
• Reason for cash vs equity: French tax laws made pure cash more efficient
• Team size: Casper had only 14 people

Strategic Rationale:
Cognism’s direct sales motion (average ACV $15K+) wasn’t retaining SMBs well. Casper’s PLG motion (ACV $500-$2K) had 110%+ net retention for the same segment. The acquisition created a “perfected customer journey” – customers could start on credit card with Casper, then upgrade to Cognism’s enterprise solution.

The Results: “We’ve now got this new go-to-market motion which is fantastic. We’re using Casper to enter new markets like Spain. We’ll go in with PLG motion, get traction, then set up direct sales teams to sell higher ACV deals.”

Key Takeaway: Acquire to fix retention problems and fill product gaps. Sometimes buying is faster than building, especially for complex go-to-market motions.

Watch James Isilay Teach the M&A Deal at our Founderpath CEO Retreat

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Example 10: Sage Acquires BrightPearl for $360M (After They Bought Inventory Planner)

Company: BrightPearl
Buyer: Sage
Sale Price: $360 million enterprise value
Terms: Sage paid ~$300M cash for the 83% they didn’t own

The Complete Story: This circles back to Example #1. After Derek O’Connell acquired Inventory Planner for $13M in August 2021, BrightPearl itself got acquired by Sage just months later in early 2022.

The Setup:

• BrightPearl revenue: $30M (2021) – $25.5M organic + $4.5M from Inventory Planner acquisition
• Previous funding: ~$40M raised prior to Derek joining, then $15M more
• Most recent round: $30M at $130M pre-money valuation
• Sage’s stake before acquisition: 17% (from the $30M round where they invested ~$17M)

How The Deal Happened: “When we raised the $30 million, the headline was: we’re raising money to grow, but we also need to prepare for competition,” Derek explained. “We had always planned to raise $100-120M in early 2022.”

“But what happened was a competitor in the UK went to market looking for funds. Four large PE firms bid on them. Only one won. The other three had spent $250-400K researching the market—they approached us saying ‘Hey, we believe this space has a lot of potential.'”

The Competitive Bid Process:

1. Three PE firms approached BrightPearl proactively (they’d already done the market research for competitor deal)
2. BrightPearl formed subcommittee with chairman Morris Healthcare
3. Hired corporate bank (Rory O’Sullivan at Paige Mill) who’d worked on their $30M round
4. Sage competed to keep BrightPearl from going to PE

Why Sage Paid Premium: “Sage competes with NetSuite. If you go to their website, you don’t see a sector-specific solution for retail. We are a sector-specific solution for retail. It was a logical marriage—they plugged us into Sage Intacct as the new retail and e-commerce group. They didn’t want it to go elsewhere.”

The Deal Math:

• Enterprise value: $360M
• Sage already owned: 17%
• Cash required: $299M euros (~$266M USD at the time)
• Value creation: Bought Inventory Planner for $13M, helped drive $360M exit months later

Deal Structure:

• Speed: “EMC wanted to do the deal in four weeks, one month which was unheard of”
• Working capital: Kept all cash in business (~$15M+)
• Team retention: Many employees stayed long-term post-acquisition

Key Takeaway: Strategic M&A can create massive value fast. BrightPearl’s $13M acquisition added capabilities that helped command a $360M valuation just months later. When strategics compete with PE firms, founders win.

Watch the full story

Acquire a User Base

Example: Ryan O’Neal (Curate) Acquires a Smaller Competitor

Company: Curate (event/florist & catering ops software)
Acquired: BloomTrac (direct competitor; small events SaaS)
Deal Price: $40,000 headline (asset purchase)
Terms: Simple, fast asset sale. Seller picked $40k cash now over an alternative $60k structure ($20k now + $40k contingent). All-in cost with legal ≈ $65k.

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The Story

In 2020 (events industry frozen), a much smaller competitor (~$120k ARR, unprofitable) emailed Ryan about selling. Curate—bootstrapped and newly profitable—moved immediately. Beyond survival, Ryan wanted a “starter acquisition” to learn the muscle. The bet: migrate the book, stabilize customers, and convert the best logos into Curate’s higher-value plans.

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Deal Structure

• Speed & Exclusivity: Same-day response → LOI with exclusivity and NDA. Closed in ~3 weeks despite major personal events (birth of Ryan’s daughter; father’s passing).
• ** diligence “lite”:** Google Sheet Q&A + rolling request list kept both sides moving.
• Clean mechanics: Asset sale (no equity tricks, no complex earnouts), designed to minimize friction and lawyer time.
• Team transfer: No team came over; seller was motivated to exit and repay a small investor.

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Strategic Rationale

• Customer capture during chaos: Rescue at-risk users, prevent data loss, and become the stable home.
• Upsell potential: Competitor’s pricing was low; Curate’s ~$2.2k ACV vs acquired cohort ~$800 → room to expand.
• Signal value: The acquisition narrative demonstrated growth through COVID and helped Curate close a $2.5M round later.

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The Results

• ARR math: Cohort entered at ~$120k ARR → expanded to ~$250k ARR.
• Cash in: $309k collected to date from the cohort.
• Hidden costs: Estimated ~$200k internal migration/CS/dev cost → all-in ~$265k vs $309k received.
• Customer outcomes: A few outsized wins (accounts up to $25k–$30k each), ~200% NRR on some upgrades.
• Migration: Legacy product shut down in ~4 months; Curate built a few missing features to smooth moves.

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Lessons & Playbook Moves You Can Copy

1. Move fast and lock exclusivity. Fire off a friendly LOI + NDA and keep a living Q&A doc.
2. Find out what the seller really wants. In this case: a clean exit now. Structure around that.
3. Keep it simple. Small deals die in complexity. Asset purchase, short LOI, narrow reps/warranties.
4. Design the customer journey first. Publish an internal timeline (announce → contract → migration dates). Align teams to it.
5. Favor webinars over 1:1 onboarding for low-ACV cohorts; reduce touches and confusion.
6. Be “hands-off” in messaging. One clear price & date beats proration mazes (e.g., “honor current price until renewal, then move to new plan”).
7. Expect hidden costs. Migrations, edge-case features, and CS load can erase “cheap ARR” illusions.
8. Know your muscle. If M&A isn’t a core competency, the distraction tax is real—especially when you’re also shifting to PLG.
9. Beware the market ripple. Eliminating a #3 competitor can invite new entrants (including former insiders).

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Why We Wouldn’t Buy a 1:1 Competitor Again

• Distraction from company goals (e.g., delayed PLG shift).
• No team transferred → Curate shouldered all migration/product work.
• Thin NPV vs. build-it-better. After full costs, returns were only modestly ahead of alternatives.
• Opens the door to new copycats once the old brand disappears.

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If We Acquire Again, the Deal Must:

• Come with the team (product + eng + CS).
• Be product-driven & complementary (not a mirror image).
• Have automatable integration (minimal manual migrations).
• Offer more than “just a chair”—clear strategic leverage (distribution, data, or tech moat).

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Key Takeaway

Micro-acquisitions can work—but cheap ARR isn’t always cheap. For low-ACV markets, keep terms ultra-simple, migration ultra-lean, and only buy what truly accelerates your roadmap (team, tech, or distribution)—otherwise, build faster and win.

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Key Takeaways

On Valuation Multiples:

SaaS Revenue Multiples:

• 0.5-1.5x for distressed/fire-sale situations
• 3-4x for pre-scale, high-growth but subscale
• 8-15x for $10M+ ARR with strong metrics
• 10x+ only with exceptional Rule of 40, retention, scale

EBITDA Multiples:

• 3-5x for small, profitable services businesses
• 8-13x for capital-efficient SaaS with strong retention
• 15x+ for strategic buyers who see massive synergies

On Deal Structure:

Cash vs. Earnouts:

• Industry average: 80% cash, 20% earnout
• 70/30 split is acceptable if buyer is trustworthy
• 100% cash is rare but possible with strong management team
• Avoid earnouts if possible—”$1 cash today > $1 earnout tomorrow”

Key Negotiation Points:

1. Working capital: Negotiate to keep excess cash in business
2. QSBS benefits: Structure to minimize/eliminate capital gains
3. Shadow equity: Good option for operators joining PE-backed companies
4. Employment/transition: Shorter is better unless you love the acquirer

On Timing:

When to Sell:

• Don’t wait until you’re declining
• Best time: Steady growth, hitting profitability, have options
• Never sell when desperate
• Consider selling when “bored” if you have strong management team

Market Timing:

• Public market volatility doesn’t affect sub-$250M deals as much
• PE has $3 trillion in dry powder seeking deployment
• Profitable businesses can sell in any market
• Strategic buyers are less affected by debt markets than PE

On Finding Buyers:

Creating Competition:

• Need minimum 3 offers, ideally 5-10+
• Send memo to 30-40 potential buyers
• Use investment bankers for $10M+ deals
• Don’t optimize for highest price—optimize for best fit
• People buy from people, not companies

On Due Diligence:

Critical Preparation:

• Hire fractional CFO 2 years before sale to clean up books
• Have data room ready BEFORE you need it
• Know your unit economics cold (especially for target ICP)
• Calculate Rule of 40 (growth rate + EBITDA margin)
• Track net dollar retention (more important than churn)

On Strategy:

Why Acquire:

• Fix retention problems (Cognism buying Casper)
• Enter new markets faster (Cognism using Casper for Spain)
• Add capabilities vs. building (BrightPearl buying Inventory Planner)
• Acquire talent/team (consolidation plays)
• Get distribution/scale faster (most strategic acquisitions)

When to Use Debt:

• ONLY for proven marketing channels where ROI is clear
• Never for testing, R&D, hiring, or unproven initiatives
• Typical terms: 10-15% interest, no warrants if profitable
• SVB was go-to before collapse; now explore FounderPath + alternatives

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Additional Resources

Want to learn more about M&A strategy? Each story above includes a link to the full interview or presentation where founders go even deeper on tactics, term sheet negotiations, and lessons learned.

Planning your own acquisition or exit? The founders above learned these lessons the hard way. Use their playbooks to avoid expensive mistakes and structure deals that work for all parties.

Key Principle: Every successful acquisition follows the same pattern: Find a win-win, create competitive tension, negotiate on relationships not just terms, and ensure both buyer and seller walk away happy.

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This guide will be continuously updated with new acquisition examples. Have a story to share? Connect with us.

The 4-Part Playbook for Growth Through Acquisition

1. Define Your Acquisition Thesis: Before you even think about buying a company, you must understand the strategic gap you’re trying to fill. Are you missing a key product feature? Do you need to enter a new market quickly? Are you trying to acquire a specific type of customer or talent? For example, James Isilay at Cognism, a company with a strong direct sales motion, realized they had a significant gap in product-led growth (PLG). Their vision was to acquire a company with PLG expertise to capture the self-serve, individual user market where they had poor retention. This clear thesis guided their entire acquisition search.
2. Identify and Approach Targets: Once you have a thesis, you can start identifying potential targets. This can happen in many ways. Sometimes, like with Cognism, a salesperson will spot a new competitor appearing in deals, signaling a potential target. In other cases, the target may come to you. Curate’s CEO Ryan O’Neil shared that his competitor reached out directly during a market downturn, creating an unexpected opportunity. The key is to be prepared and move fast. Once a target is identified, the founder should personally drive the initial outreach with a clear vision of how the combined companies will become a “superpower.”
3. Structure and Execute the Deal: Making the deal happen is about finding common ground and building relationships. Valuation is always a major hurdle. Cognism’s CEO navigated this by discussing valuation multiples based on current ARR with the founders, while discussing multiples at the close of the transaction with his board, using time as a lever to meet everyone’s expectations. Deals can be structured with cash, equity, or an earn-out structure based on future milestones. Simplicity is often key, especially for smaller deals. As Ryan O’Neil from Curate noted, a clean, simple cash offer of $40,000 was all it took to get their deal done quickly.
4. Integrate to Unlock Growth: The acquisition isn’t done when the papers are signed; that’s when the real work begins. Successful integration is critical to unlocking the value you identified in your thesis. This could mean integrating technology, merging teams, or cross-selling products into a new customer base. Xactly’s CEO Chris Cabrera explained how they executed three acquisitions in 15 months, which allowed them to go back to their 1,600 customers and significantly increase average selling prices by cross-selling the new products. A successful integration turns the acquired company into a growth engine rather than just a liability.

40+ SaaS Acquisition Examples to Inspire Your Growth

• James Isilay, CEO of Cognism, detailed the acquisition of French competitor Casper. This strategic move was to integrate Casper’s product-led growth (PLG) motion, which catered to individual users, into Cognism’s direct-sales model. The acquisition helped Cognism reach $37 million in ARR by creating a seamless customer journey from self-serve to enterprise-level packages.
• Ryan O’Neil of Curate shared how he acquired a competitor, Bloomtrack, for just $40,000 during the 2020 downturn. This single acquisition added an immediate $120,000 in ARR, which has since grown to over $250,000, and increased Curate’s valuation by an estimated $2.5 million.
• Carson Conant, CEO of MediaFly, acquired UK-based iPresent to add a self-serve, freemium model to their enterprise sales-focused platform. This move helped them grow from 150 to 260 customers and put them on a path to hit $20 million in ARR by enabling small teams within large companies to adopt their product without a lengthy procurement process.
• Vikas Bhambri of GTMfund explained how his previous company, Customer, was acquired by Meta for over $1 billion. This exit was driven by building a strong rip-and-replace solution in the competitive CRM space, demonstrating that a well-positioned product can lead to a massive acquisition outcome.
• Manny Medina, CEO of Outreach.io, shared the story of his previous company, GroupTalent. After pivoting, the recruiting services company was effectively “acquired” by its own internal tool when customers became more interested in the sales engagement platform they had built to get meetings. This internal product acquisition led to the creation of Outreach, which now does well over $6 million per month in revenue.
• Chris Federspiel of Blackthorn detailed his acquisition of Texi, funded by a debt facility. This acquisition was strategic to add SMS capabilities to their events platform, a feature highly requested by customers. This move helped Blackthorn grow to nearly $17 million in ARR by enhancing their product suite.
• Diego Gomes, CEO of Rock Content, raised $10 million specifically to acquire ScribbleLive, a company with an existing $8 million revenue run rate. This acquisition brought in the ‘Ion’ interactive content platform and the ‘Visually’ talent marketplace, allowing Rock Content to expand its suite and accelerate its ARR to over $24 million.
• Bynder’s CEO, Chris Hall, acquired their number one US competitor, Webdam, in a deal largely financed through debt. This move significantly grew their team and market share, helping them more than double their revenue from a $19 million run rate to over $48 million in about a year.
• Brandon Bruce of Cirrus Insight acquired Attach, a document management and tracking tool, using cash from operations. They identified a gap in their product suite and found Attach to be a perfect fit, allowing them to add critical features and grow their monthly recurring revenue past $1 million.
• Todd Olson, CEO of Pendo, executed the company’s first acquisition to add mobile capabilities to their product experience platform. This move allowed them to provide a complete solution across both web and mobile, helping them grow to over 400 customers and a $1.2 million monthly run rate.
• Singular CEO Gadi Eliashiv shared that his company acquired a competitor to accelerate growth. This move, along with strong upsells, helped them achieve nearly 100% year-over-year growth, scaling to a run rate of over $25 million.
• Xactly CEO Chris Cabrera described their strategy of using a private equity war chest to make three acquisitions in just 15 months. This expanded their product suite from just sales comp (ICM) to a full sales performance management (SPM) platform, allowing them to cross-sell into their 1,600+ customer base and target a run rate of over $100 million.
• Eric at Solemate built a capital-efficient company and was acquired by Dixa, which had raised $43 million. Eric kept the vast majority of the proceeds from the exit because he had no VCs on his cap table, proving that a lean approach can lead to a highly profitable founder acquisition.
• Raj De Datta, CEO of Bloomreach, revealed that his company has turned down acquisition offers in the $400 million range. By focusing on a massive market opportunity and a clear path to becoming a profitable, high-growth company, they chose to continue scaling independently towards a target of over $100 million in revenue.
• Luke Cooper, founder of Fiix, engineered the acquisition of his company by Assurant. The enterprise software business grew to manage over half a billion dollars in revenue for Assurant, showing how a strategic acquisition can unlock massive scale for the acquirer.
• Armando Biondi’s company, AdEspresso, was acquired by Hootsuite. At the time of the sale, AdEspresso was at a $5 million run rate and growing fast, but the acquisition provided a strategic exit and allowed Hootsuite to integrate a powerful ad tech tool into its social media management platform.
• Jose Caldera’s firm, Identity Mind, was acquired by Acuant. The combination of technologies created a more robust platform for trusted digital identities, showing how acquisitions can be used to build a comprehensive, market-leading solution.
• The team at Cirrus Insight also acquired Assistant.to, a calendaring and scheduling service. This was another product-gap acquisition that allowed them to build out a more all-in-one sales stack for their 150,000 paid users.
• Vijay Tella, now CEO of Workato, sold his previous company Quack, a mobile video app with 20 million users, to Skype for $150 million. This successful exit was a 10x return for his investors on a $15 million raise.
• Percolate’s CEO, Randy Woodton, joined the company post-Series C to scale its go-to-market motion. While not a direct acquisition story, it highlights how founders can bring in experienced leaders to prepare for a future exit or IPO, a key step in the acquisition lifecycle.
• The Blackthorn team, led by Chris Federspiel, acquired PCY to add PCI compliance capabilities to their payments app. Though the acquisition didn’t ultimately work out as planned, it demonstrates the willingness to use M&A to solve critical product needs.
• Adam Broadway’s first SaaS business, Business Catalyst, was acquired by Adobe in 2009. This experience of building and selling a company provided him the strategic knowledge for his current venture, PlatformOS.
• Scott at Contact Monkey bootstrapped his company to over $5 million in revenue using non-dilutive capital before executing a large private equity deal, a significant portion of which was likely a secondary offering for him as the founder.
• MediaFly’s CEO Carson Conant also mentioned the acquisition of Olynyans, which complemented their acquisition of iPresent, to build out their value story and calculator tools, enhancing their sales enablement platform.
• John Oechsle, CEO of Swiftpage, acquired Kuvana as a pure technology play to add marketing automation to their Act! product suite. This allowed them to triple their potential monthly revenue per customer by creating the Act! Grow Suite.
• The CEO of Outreach.io highlighted a critical pivot where they acquired their own company’s destiny by shifting focus from a recruiting service to selling the internal tool they built, which customers were clamoring for.
• Jim Larrison’s previous company, Addify, was acquired by Cox Enterprises for $350 million. This successful exit provided the capital and experience to spin out his current company, Dynamic Signal.
• Mikael Thuneberg of Supermetrics mentioned they are actively looking at acquisitions to add talent and new product directions, aiming to build on their data pipeline capabilities and grow beyond their current $12 million ARR.
• Mike Morgan from Channel Grabber, after selling his previous company in 2016, took over Channel Grabber as CEO and used debt financing to fund product development and get the company back to a 33% year-over-year growth trajectory.
• Cognism’s team also executed an earlier acquisition of Mailtastic in 2020. This was a majority equity deal that illustrates their long-term strategy of using M&A to consolidate their market position.
• The Pendo team acquired a company in Israel to build out their mobile product. CEO Todd Olson emphasized that a key part of the deal structure was ensuring high retention of the acquired employees through financial incentives to integrate their talent successfully.
• Dixa, a venture-backed company, raised $43 million and used a portion of it to acquire Solemate. This is a classic example of using raised capital to acquire smaller, capital-efficient companies to accelerate growth.
• The founder of metadata.io, Gil Allouche, shared a near-death story where his company almost went bankrupt. Surviving this “burn book” phase made the company stronger and ultimately a more attractive target for future partnerships or acquisition.
• The CEO of Showpad mentioned making an acquisition to integrate a new product line. This allowed them to introduce a new add-on, increasing their price per user and driving expansion revenue from their existing customer base.
• Alex Quilici, CEO of YouMail, discussed selling his previous company, Quack, to AOL for $200 million. The offer was a no-brainer compared to a competing venture offer, as it represented the value they hoped to achieve in four to five years, but delivered immediately.
• Thomas Smale of FE International shared insights from over $50 billion in closed M&A deals, explaining that metrics like net dollar retention and revenue growth are key drivers of valuation in an acquisition.
• Workato CEO Vijay Tella sold his consumer video company, Quik, to Skype for $150 million after raising just $15 million. The successful 10x exit demonstrates the power of building a product with massive user adoption.
• Charles Miglietti of Toucan Toco sold his first startup, tldr.io, for a small amount before founding his current company. This “starter” exit provided crucial experience for building his next, larger venture.
• LeadGnome’s CEO, Matt Benati, discussed the potential of being acquired by a competitor like Yesware. While he enjoys the freedom of bootstrapping, he acknowledged that a 2-3x ARR offer would warrant a serious conversation.
• Sam Caucci of 1Huddle, who has grown his company to a $3.5 million run rate, is now considering a $10 million Series A round to accelerate growth, a move that could position the company for a larger acquisition in the future.

Conclusion

You’ve just learned how dozens of top SaaS founders approach acquisitions to add millions in revenue and create massive enterprise value. Whether it’s acquiring a competitor to enter a new market, buying a smaller tool to fill a product gap, or building a capital-efficient company to achieve a life-changing exit, these strategies are proven to work. To get capital for your own growth plays, including acquisitions, check out the options available at Founderpath.

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