Sector BriefSaaS Roll-ups
Vertical SaaS consolidators slow their cadence, raise their bar
The serial acquirers that closed a deal a month through 2025 are pacing themselves. Retention quality, not growth, now decides which targets clear committee.
Sample editorial content. Companies and figures are illustrative placeholders.
In summary
- Acquisition cadence at active consolidators fell by roughly a third.
- Net revenue retention below ninety percent now stalls most processes.
- Seller notes are filling the gap left by tighter senior debt.
Serial acquirers in vertical software spent two years buying on pace. That pace has broken, and the reason is less about appetite than about what clears an investment committee when debt costs more.
Committees that once accepted a growth story now open with cohort retention. A business growing thirty percent on leaky cohorts is being passed over for one growing twelve percent with durable ones.
The financing gap
With senior lenders holding back roughly half a turn of leverage, the gap is closing with seller paper. Notes covering fifteen to twenty five percent of consideration have moved from unusual to routine, which changes the seller question from how much to how certain.
We are not paying less. We are asking the seller to stay invested in the answer for longer.