BUYER POOL ANALYSIS
Selling a Software Enterprise to Private Equity / PE-Backed Roll-Up buyers
Private equity firms and PE-backed platform consolidators acquiring for roll-up, add-on, or platform plays. Pricing tends to lead the market for fee-viable scale, with multi-bidder competitive processes above the EBITDA floor.
Quick answers
- What multiple does this buyer pool pay?
- Median EV/EBITDA 24.56x across 10 disclosed deals (P25: 17.74x, P75: 40.91x). Median EV/Revenue 5.55x across 23 deals. Median deal value: $1607.49M.
- How many disclosed transactions?
- 23 deals total (23 from 2018+), filtered to Private Equity / PE-Backed Roll-Up acquirers of software enterprise businesses.
- Most active buyers
- Thoma Bravo, L.P. (3) · General Atlantic Service Company, L.P. (1) · Turn/River Management, L.P. (1) · Haveli Investment Management LLC (1) · Crosspoint Capital Partners, LP (1) · Kaseya Inc. (1)
Recent disclosed deals
Private Equity / PE-Backed Roll-Up acquisitions of software enterprise businesses with named target, named acquirer, and disclosed financials.
| Year | Target | Acquirer | EV | EV/EBITDA | EV/Rev |
|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| 2026 | OneStream, Inc. | General Atlantic Service Company, L.P. | $5804.0M | — | 9.64x |
| 2025 | SolarWinds Corporation | Turn/River Management, L.P. | $4419.5M | 15.3x | 5.55x |
| 2024 | ZeroFox Holdings, Inc. | Haveli Investment Management LLC | $322.6M | — | 1.38x |
| 2023 | Absolute Software Corporation | Crosspoint Capital Partners, LP | $867.6M | 84.8x | 3.91x |
| 2022 | Datto Holding Corp. | Kaseya Inc. | $6028.4M | 48.1x | 9.35x |
| 2022 | KnowBe4, Inc. | Vista Equity Partners Management, LLC | $3107.3M | 181.0x | 13.03x |
What this buyer pool prices for
Private equity acquirers price for scale and roll-up arbitrage. They pay up for businesses that fit a platform thesis — recurring revenue mix above 30%, technician/professional depth, clean financials, and a management layer that survives integration. The same software enterprise can command 1.5x to 2x the multiple of an individual-buyer transaction simply because the PE buyer is acquiring a platform piece, not an owner-operated shop.
Methodology note
Multiples shown are computed from disclosed M&A transactions in the ExitValue.ai database, filtered to software enterprise businesses acquired by private equity / pe-backed roll-up buyers. EV/EBITDA outliers outside the [0.5x, 60x] band and EV/Revenue outliers outside [0.05x, 25x] are excluded from medians. Where available, post-2018 transactions are weighted; otherwise the all-time sample is used. Deal counts shown reflect deals with disclosed financials only — total transaction count for this buyer pool is typically 2-3x larger. Full methodology
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