Vertical SaaS
Industry-specific platforms where retention and workflow depth command strategic prices.
INDUSTRIES
Most founders we work with have built something valuable and can touch almost none of it. The company is profitable or close to it, the equity is real, and it is entirely on paper. The instinct in that position is to raise capital or sell the business outright. Both are often the wrong move, and both are usually made without anyone at the table whose only interest is the principal's.
We work with founders before that decision is made. The question is rarely whether the business has value. It is how to convert some of that value into capital without surrendering control, taking the wrong partner, or selling a company that is still compounding.
We back founder-led software with revenue behind it, not narrative. We are most active where a founder wants liquidity without an exit, and where fragmented operators are worth more assembled than apart.
We back founder-led software with revenue behind it, not narrative. We are most active where a founder wants liquidity without an exit, and where fragmented operators are worth more assembled than apart.
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Where we engage
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Minority recapitalisations that release liquidity while the founder keeps control
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Secondaries for founders, early employees, and angels ahead of a company-level event
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Roll-ups of sub-scale vertical software into a single platform, with the firm co-investing
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Growth capital for businesses past proof of model but short of institutional scale
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Direct positions for post-exit technology wealth that wants the deal, not a blind pool
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From founder-owned platforms to institutional portfolio companies, we cover the sector wherever ownership, capital, or control is changing hands.
Industry-specific platforms where retention and workflow depth command strategic prices.
The layer beneath the application stack, where consolidation is constant and strategic buyers are patient.
Managed security and identity businesses priced on recurring revenue and the durability of the threat cycle.
Licensed and licence-adjacent platforms where processing economics and regulatory posture set the price.
Proprietary data and applied AI businesses, valued on defensibility rather than novelty.
Transaction platforms and audience businesses read on take rate, liquidity, and cohort behaviour.
Hybrid models where the software margin and the services margin must be separated before the business is priced.
Device businesses where recurring software attach decides which multiple applies.
Designers, manufacturers, and specialist suppliers valued on intellectual property, qualification cycles, and capacity access.
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Buyers have moved from growth at any price to revenue quality: retention, net expansion, and the true cost of the growth already booked.
AI is rewriting product roadmaps and acquisition theses at the same time, and capability deals are being priced alongside consolidation plays.
Founder-owned software with durable revenue now attracts structured offers: earn-outs, rollovers, and staged control. Most owners see one of these in a lifetime. The buyer prices them every month.
Typical Situations
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A profitable software business where the founder wants to take twenty to forty per cent off the table and keep running it.
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Several sub-scale operators in one vertical that would be priced very differently as one platform.
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A founder with significant paper wealth and no liquidity until a distant company-level exit.
If you are at this point, or advising someone who is, it is worth a conversation.
If you have a transaction, a capital requirement, a structuring question, or a matter that requires coordination across multiple jurisdictions and disciplines, we should speak.
Request an IntroductionAll enquiries are reviewed by the principal.