Three-Stage Positioning Drives Successful Business Sales
One of the most important aspects of selling a business is appropriate positioning. For most companies, the surface-level operational metrics don't tell the complete story of company performance or opportunity. Positioning a business at various stages in a company's lifetime can reveal important messages that need to be shared with buyers at the right moment. At Vista Point Advisors, we recommend founders work with an investment bank to approach positioning in three stages: * Pre-engagement * Pre-marketing * Marketing You can read the details in the following article: https://lnkd.in/gRtZkK2j #founders #pathtoexit
Personal Liquidity Becomes Valuable as Your Company Grows
Founders often ask us if it's bad for them to take personal liquidity as part of a transaction. Early on in your business, it might not make as much sense for an investor to provide liquidity, but as your enterprise...
AI Triggers SaaS Re‑Rating, Not Collapse – Reassess Now
A lot of software founders are understandably rattled by AI right now. The headlines are loud, buyers are asking different questions, and the criteria for what makes a fundable or sellable business has shifted in a short period of time....
39 | SaaSpocalypse? How AI Is Reshaping Software M&A
The episode tackles the so‑called “SaaS apocalypse,” exploring how recent generative‑AI breakthroughs—most notably Claude’s legal‑vertical launch—have rattled private software valuations and reshaped M&A dynamics. Host Mike Lion and AI‑focused advisor Jeff Coons argue that the market’s panic is a short‑lived...
Sell When You're Thriving, Not When Growth Slows
Many founders wait until growth slows before thinking about selling or raising capital, but the irony is: buyers and investors are often most interested when a business is performing at its best. In this episode of Vista Point Advisors The...
38 | The Entrepreneur's Dilemma: When Should You Sell or Raise Capital?
The episode of “Path to Exit” tackles the entrepreneur’s dilemma—when to sell a thriving software business or raise new capital. Host Mike Lion and Vista Point MD Jeff Coons explain why timing a liquidity event matters more than the eventual...
Maximize Founder Leverage After Buyer Diligence, Avoid Early Exclusivity
At what point does a founder have the most leverage in a transaction? The point at which buyers have completed all their diligence, fully understand the business, and can close on a rapid timeline. This is when you can extract...
Partial Recap During Growth Boosts Valuation and Upside
Because founders are famously optimistic about the future of their business, selling their company during a growth phase may feel like giving away too much upside. A couple things to think about in this case: 1. A liquidity event is...
Spin.AI Secures K1 Investment, Accelerating Growth
Congrats to Dmitry Dontov , Helen Yevtushenko , and the Spin.AI team for their recent investment by K1 Investment Management . Best of luck as you kick off the next stage in your journey. Glad we could help. Check out...
Watch for Conflict: Banks May Favor Repeat Buyers
If you're a founder considering hiring an investment bank to help sell your business or raise capital, you need to do your diligence to make sure the bank doesn't have any conflicts of interest. Commonly, M&A banks will represent companies...
Leading M&A Advisor to Founder-Led Software Companies | Vista Point Advisors
Vista Point Advisors positions itself as a dedicated M&A advisor exclusively for founder‑led software companies, offering sell‑side only counsel that eliminates the typical conflicts of interest found at traditional investment banks. The firm emphasizes an aggressive sales process driven by its...
Sell During Strong Growth, Not Market Uncertainty
We spend a lot of time at Vista Point walking founders through the considerations around WHEN to pursue a liquidity event. While external factors like the state of your vertical market are certainly important to consider, the first and foremost...
Selling Your Business Can Accelerate Its Growth
Selling your business may be the best way to help it grow. Hear what Smita Bakshi, co-founder of zyBooks, has to say on the matter: https://lnkd.in/efcrW6dN #mergersandacquisitions #startupexits #investmentbanking #saasfounders #software #saas #tech #founders #pathtoexit
Pick the Right Sale Type for Your Exit Goals
How much of your business do you want to sell? Should you pursue a minority, majority, or full sale transaction? Founders looking to exit or raise capital have to decide which is the best path to achieve your goals, both...
Founders Beware: ROFR Clauses Can Block Future Exits
For minority investors to include protective provisions within their purchase agreements is common practice, but one provision that founders should be particularly aware of is the right of first refusal (ROFR). A ROFR clause places an obligation on the company...
Multiple Bidders Boost Leverage, Valuation, and Deal Success
A competitive sales process includes multiple buyers bidding against each other, each investing considerable time and resources to win the bid. This competition increases: * Your negotiating leverage * Your valuation * Your probability of a closed deal #founders #pathtoexit
Valuation Blends SaaS Metrics with Deal Structuring
Valuation is understandably one of the most top-of-mind topics founders want to cover in our conversations. Something we often emphasize is that there are two sides of valuation: the objective side based on core SaaS metrics, and the subjective side...
Avoid Exclusivity: Protect Your Deal Leverage
Buyers and investors will commonly request exclusivity as part of a transaction process. As a founder, you should be hesitant to grant that request. Exclusivity is a period of time in which a seller is locked into negotiation with just...
Reject Monthly Retainers, Minimum Fees, and Conflicts in Bank Engagements
Here are a few items you should always say "no way" to when structuring an engagement letter with an investment bank: 1. Ongoing monthly retainers Ongoing monthly retainer fees could incent the banker to stretch out the process unnecessarily. Opt...
Pear Deck’s Deal Showcases High Value, Competitive Bidding, Low Risk
Pear Deck was a fantastic company to work with. Some of the highlights from their transaction include: * A strong enterprise value resulting from high growth * A highly competitive process with multiple buyers * A short exclusivity period with...
M&A Often Beats IPO for Founder Liquidity
Many founders view an IPO as the ultimate goal, but going public doesn’t always deliver what founders actually want: true liquidity and diversified financial risk. In this video, I talk through why M&A is often the more practical and rewarding...
Accurate SaaS Gross Margin Is Critical for Valuation
Gross margin underscores the scalability of a business model and is therefore important for determining valuation. An unfortunate truth is that in SaaS, gross margin is almost never calculated or positioned correctly for investors/buyers. If you're talking to investors or...
Data Room Activity Reveals Buyer Seriousness for Better Negotiations
All of our clients use a data room. A data room is a secure, online document repository to host important resources related to selling a business/raising capital. The primary reason for utilizing data rooms is to stay organized and make...
Upsell & Cross‑sell Boost M&A Valuation
As a SaaS company, the benefits of being able to up-sell or cross-sell a customer go beyond just growing your revenue base. When the time comes to start conversations with strategic buyers or investors, your ability to grow the average...
Six Essential Steps to Close an M&A Deal
What are the basic phases of a process (M&A or capital raise)? 1. Pre-marketing Complete the marketing materials (information packet and buyer list) and get your house in order. 2. Marketing Reach out to buyers, execute NDAs, and share marketing...
2026 Vertical SaaS Outlook: Buyers Return, AI Valuation Shifts
How do we see vertical Software M&A and fund raising shaping up for 2026? A lot of founders we speak with are trying to figure out what 2026 might actually look like if they're thinking about raising capital or selling....
Choose Unconflicted Banks that Prioritize Founder Interests
What does it mean to be a founder-focused investment bank? Founder-focused means that a bank is fully unconflicted and focused on the interests of founders. In other words, the bank doesn't accept revenue from anyone that could be a buyer...
Six Key Steps to Close an M&A Deal
What are the basic milestones of a process (M&A or capital raise)? 1. Pre-marketing Complete the marketing materials (information packet and buyer list) and get your house in order. 2. Marketing Reach out to buyers, execute NDAs, and share marketing...
Management Pitches Are Friendly, Not Tense, Focus on Fit
When you're going to sell your business or raise capital, what should you expect from management presentations? Generally, you should expect those meetings to be friendly. Buyers will be asking questions, but they're also trying to sell themselves. The main...
Founder‑Led SaaS Thrives Amid Market Headwinds, 2025 Success
Thank you to all of the founders, partners, and colleagues we worked with in 2025. Despite headwinds in the broader market, founder-led SaaS companies continued to outperform, drawing meaningful buyer interest and achieving strong valuations. Last year, Vista Point Advisors...
Beware Buyer Tactics—Lean on Your Banker
What are some ways buyers try to get an unfair advantage in a process? 1. Create artificial deadlines for the founder to give them exclusivity. 2. Encourage founders to sign an LOI early, without providing much detail on what the...
Five Years of Growth Leads to Strategic Exit
After Sarah Rowell and Scott Mackenzie spent five years increasing Kantola Training Solutions' revenue, client retention, and learner engagement, they saw the market starting to consolidate and decided to make a strategic move to maximize value; either through acquisition or...
Roofle Acquired by SalesRabbit: A New Growth Chapter
Congrats to Travis Harvego , Joe Hoffman , and the ROOFLE team for their recent acquisition by SalesRabbit . Best of luck as you kick off the next stage in your journey. Glad we could help. Check out the press...
Predictable Revenue Drives Higher SaaS Valuations
Valuations of software companies are highly dependent on the predictability of revenue. In other words, different classes of revenue are valued differently depending on their predictability. The more predictable, the better. To help founders distinguish between the different classes of...
Engage Multiple Buyers to Maximize Synergies and Outcomes
Different buyers value companies differently. Only by talking to a broad spectrum of buyers will you ensure that you: * Uncover all potential synergies * Make the process hyper-competitive * Unlock the best outcome #founders #pathtoexit
Parallel Due Diligence Compresses Timeline and Boosts Competition
How long should due diligence take? Ad hoc diligence begins Day One of a process, but the detailed, confirmatory diligence right before closing the deal should last roughly 3-4 weeks (assuming you run a tightly controlled process). If it were...
Organize Diligence and Keep Competition to Prevent Retrades
One of the most frustrating things for a founder selling their business: A retrade. Retrading is when a buyer tries to renegotiate the terms of a transaction late in a process due to "new" information that arose during final diligence....
Highlight Unique B2C Strengths to Secure Better Sale
A key aspect of marketing a B2C software company is helping prospective buyers/investors evaluate the asset on its own merits instead of against the backdrop of B2B software. Unfortunately, B2C software businesses usually don't receive the same caliber of treatment...
Avoid These Founder Exit Pitfalls with Goldman Sachs
In our latest episode of Vista Point Advisors ' podcast, The Path to Exit, I sat down with Sarah Letourneau from Goldman Sachs to talk about the most common pitfalls we see founders encounter when preparing for an exit. Listen...
Ep 35 | Pitfalls to Avoid on the Path to an Exit (with Goldman Sachs)
The episode of "The Path to Exit" tackles the most common pitfalls software and internet founders face when preparing for a liquidity event, featuring Sarah Letourneau of Goldman Sachs. Letourneau frames the discussion around three core themes—timing, valuation anchoring,...
Investment Bank Boosts Sale Price 40% with Broader Marketing
What's the value an investment bank can provide? As an example, we had one founder who was on the verge of signing an LOI with a buyer, but then decided to engage us first. In a 3-week turnaround, we marketed...
Key Triggers That Signal It's Time to Raise or Exit
We frequently get asked how a founder can tell when it's the best time to think about raising capital or making an exit. The truth is, it depends on a handful of factors. In this video, I walk through some...
SMB SaaS Can Command Enterprise‑Level ARR Multiples
SaaS companies serving the SMB space are often overlooked as potential investment opportunities because, when compared to enterprise SaaS providers, these companies tend to have higher churn and less well-known (or even unknown) customers. Despite these relative weaknesses, if positioned...
VCs Pose Greater Risk to Tech Than Private Equity
In some sectors, private equity has a reputation for loading companies with debt, and those companies eventually implode under the weight. But we haven't seen this so much with tech-oriented private equity firms. Rather, venture capital money can be more...
Recapitalize to Replace Early Investors with Growth Capital
Oftentimes as your company grows, you either outgrow your investor or they've passed their investment horizon and are looking to exit. For example, you may have a smaller fund invest early on, but then your company does well and you...
Founder Shares Bank Selection Insight for Leap Recap
We're grateful for founders like Patrick Fingles who rival us in the amount of energy they bring to a transaction. Special thanks, Patrick, for sharing your firsthand account of selecting a bank to represent you and the executive team at...
Vista Point Advisors Launches New NYC Office
I’m excited to share that Vista Point Advisors is opening a new office right in the heart of New York City! This is a big step for us as we keep growing and getting closer to the amazing founders, investors,...
PE Fuels Growth for Companies at Scalability Inflection Point
What a private equity firm is particularly good at is identifying companies that have reached an inflection point in terms of scalability. If a firm can spot a company with a proven thesis, they can invest behind that knowing it's...
US Buyers Pay Premium for Software Thanks to Bigger TAM
In the international M&A/private equity markets, US buyers/investors tend to be the most aggressive in terms of valuation (specifically for software & internet companies). The primary reason is that TAM in the US represents a much larger opportunity compared to...
Secure Reliable Term Sheets by Leveraging Early Negotiation
Many first-time founders consider the signing of a term sheet as the signal that the deal is nearing its close and the majority of the terms are set in stone. These founders are then surprised when, during exclusivity, the buyer...