The firms that buy the most small SaaS companies are software holding companies and smaller private equity funds: Constellation Software, Valsoft, saas.group, iTrinity and Embrace Software buy companies with roughly $1M to $30M in revenue, and funds such as Ionic Partners, Camber Partners and Polychrome invest at the same size. The biggest software private equity firms, such as Vista Equity Partners and Thoma Bravo, mostly buy much larger companies.
Which one fits depends on what you want after the sale: a holding company buys 100% and keeps the business, a private equity fund usually plans to sell it again, and a strategic buyer merges it into its own product. Below are the ten active buyers, what each says it buys, what buyers pay and how a sale works.
Key Takeaways
- SaaS acquisitions hit a record 2,698 deals in 2025, and private equity firms took part in nearly 58% of them (Software Equity Group, 2026).
- The median SaaS acquisition was priced at 4.0x trailing 12-month revenue in the second quarter of 2026 (Software Equity Group).
- Smaller SaaS businesses sold on Acquire.com went for a median 3.9x annual profit in 2024 and 2025, after an average of 81 days on the market (Acquire.com, January 2026).
- 24% of private company acquisitions in 2025 included an earnout, and sellers collected about 21 cents per dollar of earnout (SRS Acquiom, 2026).
Who Buys SaaS Companies?
Four kinds of buyer account for almost every sale. Private equity is the biggest force: Software Equity Group’s 2026 Annual SaaS Report found private equity buyers involved in nearly 58% of the 2,698 SaaS acquisitions in 2025, a record year, and about 92% of buyers had a strategic reason for the deal. What each type does after closing matters as much as the price:
| Buyer type | Examples | What they buy | After the sale |
|---|---|---|---|
| Software holding company | Constellation Software, Valsoft, saas.group, iTrinity, Embrace | Usually 100% of profitable, niche software companies | Keep and run it indefinitely |
| Private equity fund | Ionic Partners, Camber Partners, Thoma Bravo, Vista | Majority or minority stakes | Grow it, then sell it again, typically within years |
| Strategic buyer | Software companies in your market | Products that fit their own | Merge it into their product and team |
| Individual or search fund | Buyers on marketplaces such as Acquire.com | Smaller, simpler businesses | Run it themselves |
We always do a 100%. … That’s the core difference. Like, if you would … go to a private equity company, they would take a significant minority or a majority, and then they would flip the company three years later after they’ve done, hopefully, some improvements. … In our case, because we want to operate it forever, there’s no resell … so it doesn’t make sense to only do a portion. So we always buy a 100%.
Tim Schumacher, CEO, saas.group ($60M revenue). Watch at 18:19
The largest private equity firms work at a different scale. Dakota’s 2026 list of top private equity firms investing in SaaS includes Vista Equity Partners, Thoma Bravo, Insight Partners and TA Associates; they mostly buy companies far larger than a bootstrapped founder’s, so the ten firms below are the more realistic buyers for a company under about $30M in revenue.
The 10 Firms That Buy SaaS Companies
Every firm below made a deal in 2025 or 2026. The size criteria are what each firm publishes on its own website, as of October 2026, unless another source is named.
| Firm | Type | What it says it buys | Latest deal found |
|---|---|---|---|
| saas.group | Holding company | $1M to $10M ARR, always 100% | Ayrshare, October 2025 |
| iTrinity | Holding company | $1M to $10M ARR, 80% to 100% | IsDown, 2026 |
| Constellation Software | Serial acquirer | Vertical market software, no revenue limit | DerbySoft (majority), June 2026 |
| Valsoft | Serial acquirer | Vertical software, mostly $2M to $20M revenue | Firebrand Group, October 2026 |
| Embrace Software | Serial acquirer | Mission-critical software, $2M to $30M revenue | Fairfax Software, June 2026 |
| EXA Capital | Buy-and-hold investor | Established enterprise software | Flow Software, February 2026 |
| Ionic Partners | Private equity | B2B software, $5M to $50M revenue | e-Courier Software, November 2025 |
| Camber Partners | Growth equity | B2B software, $3M to $20M ARR | Respond.io Series B, June 2026 |
| Polychrome | Small operator fund | Small B2B software, joint ventures or 100% | Dokploy, November 2025 |
| Redbrick | Holding company | Marketing and productivity software | Paved, March 2025 |
1. saas.group
saas.group buys bootstrapped SaaS companies with $1M to $10M in ARR, per its website, and always buys 100%. Its acquisition of Ayrshare in October 2025 was its 24th, and by March 2026 Pulse 2.0 reported more than $100M of ARR across over 25 brands and about 400 people. Its site says it makes an offer within 7 to 10 days and closes in 8 to 10 weeks.
In June 2024, CEO Tim Schumacher told Nathan Latka the group then owned 20 companies with $60M of combined ARR, that its first two deals were paid with his own cash, and that it had just raised a $25M equity round for a single-digit percentage of the parent company (per GetLatka’s interview with Schumacher). Several acquired companies have grown four or five times since the sale.
Watch the full interview with Tim Schumacher, with transcript.
2. iTrinity
iTrinity, the group behind KWFinder and Mangools, buys SaaS companies with $1M to $10M in ARR, or at least $200K growing 50% a year, per its website. It buys 80% to 100%, says it pays 2x to 10x ARR in cash with no earnouts, and aims to close in 4 to 8 weeks. Its most recent purchase listed there is the status-page aggregator IsDown, in 2026.
3. Constellation Software
Toronto-based Constellation buys vertical market software companies and runs them indefinitely. Its acquisition criteria set no revenue limit, only a preference for recurring revenue, and its website counts more than 1,100 acquisitions across nine operating groups, including Volaris and Jonas. Its most recent large deal was a majority stake in DerbySoft, closed in June 2026.
Jason Pearsall, who sold golf software company Club Caddie to Constellation, describes its usual target as a company that has been through a growth period, started to decline and has tired founders, where it can run the business more efficiently and regrow it. He calls Club Caddie an exception: by his account, the earliest-stage company Constellation had acquired.
4. Valsoft
Montreal-based Valsoft, founded in 2015, buys vertical market software companies and keeps them for the long term. A Valsoft executive told Rollup Europe in December 2025 that most of its acquisitions have $2M to $20M in revenue, with a sweet spot of $5M to $10M. Its website now lists more than 150 companies, and it bought the Firebrand Group in October 2026.
5. Embrace Software
Tampa-based Embrace Software buys mission-critical software companies with $2M to $30M in revenue, in any industry, per its website, which counts more than 35 acquisitions. It is one of the most active buyers on this list: it announced four acquisitions in the first half of 2026, most recently Fairfax Software in June.
6. EXA Capital
Dallas-based EXA Capital, founded in 2020, buys established enterprise software companies to hold them, and its website promises never to sell or restructure them. It publishes no size range. It announced two acquisitions in February 2026, Flow Software and StaffReady.
7. Ionic Partners
Ionic Partners, an operator-led private equity firm in Austin, focuses on B2B software companies with $5M to $50M in revenue, per its website, and says it will buy companies that are cash-flow positive or negative. In November 2025 it bought e-Courier Software and merged it with CXT Software, which it had acquired that February.
8. Camber Partners
New York-based Camber Partners invests in B2B software companies with $3M to $20M in ARR growing at least 20% a year, writing equity checks of $15M to $50M, per its website, and says it backs only two or three companies a year. It is a growth equity investor rather than a buyer of the whole company. In June 2026 it led a $62.5M Series B in Respond.io.
9. Polychrome
Polychrome buys small to medium-sized B2B software businesses, often as a 50-50 joint venture with the founder, or 100% if the founder wants to sell, according to an Axial profile that put its target at $1M to $5M in enterprise value in 2023. It makes about one or two deals a year; its latest, in Dokploy, was in November 2025, per PitchBook.
10. Redbrick
Redbrick, founded in 2011 in Victoria, British Columbia, builds, acquires and operates software companies, including Leadpages and Animoto. It publishes no size range. Its latest purchase was the newsletter advertising platform Paved, in March 2025, its fourth major acquisition in five years.
What Do Buyers Pay for a SaaS Company?
Most SaaS companies sell for a few times their revenue. Software Equity Group’s Q2 2026 report puts the median SaaS acquisition at 4.0x trailing 12-month revenue, and Aventis Advisors, using 543 SaaS deals with a disclosed price since 2015, finds a median of 4.5x with a top quartile above 8.1x and a 2025 median of 3.8x. Both samples lean toward larger deals, because small deals rarely disclose a price.
Smaller businesses are often priced on profit instead. On Acquire.com, where most deals are below $10M in enterprise value, SaaS businesses sold for a median 3.9x annual profit in both 2024 and 2025. Holding companies quote revenue multiples for the cash they pay upfront: Tim Schumacher told Nathan Latka that saas.group usually pays 2x to 4x ARR, and iTrinity’s CEO gives a wider range:
Our typical multipliers are something like between 2.0 to 8.0. I think all seven acquisitions were somewhere in this range.
Michal Aftanas, CEO, iTrinity ($25M revenue). Watch at 11:32
Watch the full interview with Michal Aftanas, with transcript. Growth, retention, profit and size move a company within these ranges. To estimate yours, try our SaaS valuation calculator, or read our guide to SaaS valuation multiples.
How a SaaS Acquisition Works
- Prepare. Clean up your financial statements, metrics and contracts, and put them in a data room before you talk to buyers.
- Reach buyers. Contact holding companies directly, list on a marketplace, or hire a broker or banker to run a process with several buyers at once.
- Get a letter of intent (LOI). A non-binding offer setting out the price, how much is paid at closing, any earnout or holdback, and a period of exclusivity.
- Due diligence. The buyer checks your revenue, customers, code, contracts and taxes. Most renegotiation happens here.
- Sign and close. The purchase agreement fixes the final terms, the money moves, and a handover period begins.
Holding companies move fastest because they buy with their own capital: iTrinity aims for 4 to 8 weeks from first contact to closing and saas.group for 8 to 10 weeks, per their websites. On Acquire.com, listings spent an average of 81 days on the market. A broker-run process for a larger company usually takes longer.
The headline price in an LOI is rarely all cash at closing. In his SaaSOpen 2024 keynote, Thomas Smale, CEO of FE International, showed a recently signed LOI for a $25M acquisition: $18M paid in cash at closing (72% of the price, our arithmetic), $4M tied to the seller’s representations and warranties, and $3M paid only if monthly revenue churn stayed below 2%.
How to Choose the Right Buyer
Compare offers on more than the headline number:
- Cash at closing. Money paid on the day is the only part of the price you are sure to get.
- Earnouts and holdbacks. Payments tied to future results or to your promises in the contract. Ask exactly which metric triggers each payment and who controls it after the sale.
- How much they buy. A holding company usually takes 100%; a private equity fund may leave you a stake that pays out when it sells again.
- What happens to your team and product. Holding companies tend to keep the business running as it is; a strategic buyer may merge it into its own product.
- Your role. Most buyers want a handover period, from a few months to a few years.
Earnouts deserve the most care. SRS Acquiom found that 24% of private company acquisitions in 2025 included one, and its 2026 Earnouts and Claims Study found sellers collected about 21 cents per dollar of earnout. Those figures cover all private company deals, not only SaaS, but founders tell the same story:
We agreed that most of my equity was going to come at the … back end of my earn-out, and the company kept moving the goalposts. … My earn-out should have been something in a region of about five million … and when I came out the back of it, I got about 900K from it, because they kept moving the goalposts through that period.
Adam Baker, CEO, Dealpad ($2.4M revenue), on selling his first company. Watch at 25:01
Alternatives to Selling the Whole Company
Selling 100% is not the only way to take money off the table or fund the next stage:
- Sell a minority stake with a secondary. A growth investor buys part of the company and some of the money goes to the founders and early employees, who keep running it.
- Sell a majority and keep a stake. You get most of the value now and a second payout when the buyer sells.
- Fund growth without selling equity. If the reason to sell is to fund a hire or a channel, debt or revenue-based financing can pay for it while you keep 100% of the company.
Paroon Chadha, CEO of board-management software company OnBoard, explains why his minority private equity round included a secondary: it let long-serving employees take home their first six- and seven-figure checks while the company stayed independent. Our SaaS financing guide compares the non-dilutive options.
SaaS Acquirers FAQ
Who buys SaaS companies?
Four kinds of buyer: software holding companies such as Constellation Software, Valsoft and saas.group, which buy and keep companies; private equity funds, which take part in most SaaS deals and usually sell again later; strategic buyers, which merge a product into their own; and individuals or search funds buying smaller businesses on marketplaces.
What multiple do SaaS companies sell for?
Software Equity Group puts the median SaaS acquisition at 4.0x trailing 12-month revenue in the second quarter of 2026. Smaller businesses are often priced on profit: on Acquire.com the median was 3.9x annual profit in 2024 and 2025. Growth, retention, profit and size move a company above or below those medians.
How long does it take to sell a SaaS company?
A direct sale to a holding company can close in about two months: iTrinity aims for 4 to 8 weeks and saas.group for 8 to 10 weeks, per their websites. Listings on Acquire.com spent an average of 81 days on the market. A broker-run process for a larger company usually takes longer.
Do private equity firms buy small SaaS companies?
Some do. Funds such as Ionic Partners, Camber Partners and Polychrome invest in companies with a few million dollars of revenue, but the largest software private equity firms mostly buy much bigger companies. For a business under about $10M ARR, holding companies are usually the more active buyers.
What is an earnout in a SaaS acquisition?
An earnout is part of the price paid later, only if the business hits agreed targets after the sale, such as revenue or churn. SRS Acquiom found that 24% of private company acquisitions in 2025 included one and that sellers collected about 21 cents per dollar of earnout, so judge an offer mainly on cash at closing.
What is the difference between a SaaS holding company and private equity?
A holding company buys 100% of a business with its own capital and plans to keep it indefinitely. A private equity fund raises money from investors for a fixed period, often buys a majority or minority stake, and plans to sell the company again once it has grown.
How do I find buyers for my SaaS company?
Contact holding companies directly through their sell-to-us pages, list the business on a marketplace such as Acquire.com, or hire a broker or investment banker to run a process with several buyers. Having clean financial statements and a data room ready shortens every route.
What do buyers look for in a SaaS company?
Recurring revenue that renews, low churn, healthy gross margins, profit or a clear path to it, no single customer that dominates revenue, and clean financial records. Holding companies often prefer profitable, niche businesses with steady customers over fast but unprofitable growth.
Fund Growth Without Giving Up Equity
If you are thinking about selling because the company needs capital, you may not have to give up ownership at all.
Founderpath provides non-dilutive capital for B2B SaaS companies with at least $10K MRR. There’s no equity, no warrants, no board seats and no personal guarantees. Connect your billing, banking and accounting data, and most founders see funds within 24-48 hours.
Check what you qualify for. It takes less than 5 minutes.
Recent Articles
CARR vs ARR: What Contracted ARR Is and How It Differs
CARR is your ARR plus signed contracts that aren't live yet, minus churn notices. How to calculate CARR, how it differs from ARR, bookings and RPO, and how to report it honestly.
What Is a UCC Filing? What It Means When a Lender Files One
A UCC filing is a public notice that a lender has a lien on some or all of your business assets. What a UCC-1 contains, how long it lasts, how it affects new financing and how to remove one.
What Are Debt Warrants? How Venture Debt Warrants Work
Debt warrants give a lender the right to buy shares at a fixed price alongside a loan. How warrant coverage works, what it costs in dilution, and which lenders take warrants.