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Founder BriefThe vastly underrated exit.
Long seen as a consolation prize, the acqui-hire has become a $40 billion exit for some of tech's most successful startups.
Founder Briefs
What founders of fintech, software and data companies should know about the current M&A environment: one idea per issue, with the numbers behind it.
The vastly underrated exit.
Long seen as a consolation prize, the acqui-hire has become a $40 billion exit for some of tech's most successful startups.
You and your buyer are watching different numbers.
The numbers that set your price are the ones your ledger was never built to produce.
When the buyer is a sponsor, part of your company's price is set in the credit market.
Cheaper debt lifted what sponsors could pay for two years. On September 16 the Fed changed that.
Everyone knows that AI killed software. The recovery says otherwise.
After a selloff of up to a third this spring, application software has come all the way back, except for the fifteen largest names.
Deal Notes
Longer notes on valuation, timing, buyers, and running a competitive process.
Rerating Software After the AI Crash: The Recovery Private Founders Missed
Small-cap application software is up 18% for the year against 13% for the S&P 500 after the AI dump. The recovery has been underreported.
The Founder's Guide to Reading a Form D (What Your Competitors' Filings Reveal)
Nearly every US private raise generates a Form D on SEC EDGAR — public, free, and searchable in two minutes. How to find a competitor's filings, what each field actually means, and the four patterns worth acting on, with base rates from our tape of 1,792 filings over the last six months.
Where Startups Actually Raise: California's Share Is Down a Quarter Since 2018
We mapped 35,483 funded US operating companies from SEC Form D filings. California still leads by a wide margin — but its share of active raisers has fallen from 26.8% to 19.4% since the 2016–18 era, Florida's has nearly doubled, and the last six months of filings show New York and Texas in a dead heat. The funding map, from primary data.
The 2021 Cohort: $633B Raised, Then Silence. 2026–2028 Is When It Resolves.
8,107 US operating companies last raised in 2021–22 and have never filed again — $633B of capital now sitting in companies that went quiet at peak prices. Meanwhile 26,972 funds from the same vintages hold the other side of those cap tables, and 360 PE platforms were bought at 2021 prices. Three datasets, one converging timeline.
How Long Does Private Equity Actually Hold a Company? We Dated 2,685 Deals.
The textbook answer is 3–5 years. We collected news-sourced acquisition dates for 2,685 portfolio companies across 21 PE firms and checked current holdings against the firms' own websites. The real answer: the median active hold is already 4.9 years, a quarter of holdings are past year 7, and Vista has owned Trintech for 15.6 years.
The Median Private Raise in 2026 Is $1.75M. The Headlines Cover the Other 5%.
We read every SEC Form D from the last six months: 1,686 operating-company raises. The median is $1.75M, 69% of rounds are under $5M, and only 5% clear $100M — an inversion of what funding coverage suggests. What the full distribution means for founders benchmarking their own raise, and for anyone reading this market.
62% of Funded Startups Go Quiet. Here's What Actually Happens to Them.
We tracked 35,399 US companies that raised at least $1M in SEC Form D filings. 21,857 of them — 62% — haven't filed a raise in four or more years. What going quiet really means, what the paths out look like, and why almost none of the endings ever make the news.
Who's Buying Software & Fintech Companies in 2026 (Strategics vs. PE)
We track M&A filings across fintech, software, and data. Here's what our deal tape shows about who's actually buying in 2026 — strategics vs. private equity, the named acquirers, the biggest deals, and what it means for your exit.
How to Sell Your App for What It's Actually Worth (2026)
App owners get cold offers from brokers and low multiples on Acquire.com and Flippa. Here's what apps really sell for, why those channels pay less, and how a run process captures more.
Fintech Valuation Multiples in 2026: Why Visa Trades at 16x Revenue and PayPal at 1.5x
Fintech isn't one multiple. The data and network businesses (Visa, FICO) trade above 14x revenue while transactional payments (PayPal) trade near 1.5x — here's the two-tier market and what it means for private fintech valuations.
The SaaS Apocalypse: What the Public Software Crash Means for Private Valuations
Salesforce, Adobe, Workday and ServiceNow are down 40-52% from their highs. Is SaaS dead — and what does the public software crash mean for private software valuations?
SaaS Valuation Multiples Under $30M Revenue (2026)
What a founder-led SaaS company under $30M in revenue actually sells for in 2026 — current sector multiples, the private-company discount, and the metrics that move your number.
Your VC's Fund Is Turning 10. What Happens to Your Startup Now?
VC funds have a 10-year clock, and when it runs out your board's behavior changes. What fund end-of-life means for founders — with data from 87,317 fund filings — and how to find out how old your investors' funds really are.
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