Private Equity Fundraising Is Down for the Fourth Year in a Row. Selling Your B2B Company to PE Got Harder Again in 2026
Venture is on fire right now. AI rounds are closing at speeds and sizes we haven’t seen before, and the VC asset class has held up better than most people expected a year ago. Private equity is in a very different spot. PitchBook data in the WSJ shows U.S. PE...
It Takes 12 Years to IPO. Then Another 2-3 for Your VCs to Get Liquid. And Founders Can Generally Only Sell About ~4% a Year.
An IPO should be Plan A. It’s the best outcome for almost everyone on the cap table. But founders, employees and even a lot of VCs treat the IPO date as the liquidity date. For most of the cap table … most of the money comes years later. Start the clock at...
Dear SaaStr: When Is the Best Time for a Co-Founder to Leave a Startup?
Dear SaaStr: When Is the Best Time for a Co-Founder to Leave a Startup? The best time to quit is the earlier of (x) 6 months from the time you’ve decided to move on or (y) at any time when the other founders ask you to. If you’ve truly decided to leave, then it’s...
What Would an Independent Slack Look Like If It Hadn’t Sold to Salesforce? And Would It Still Be Worth $27 Billion?
Julian Lehr asked a good question the other day on X: what if Slack had never sold to Salesforce, stayed in founder mode, and went hard at AI? What would the product look like, and what would it be trading at? What would an independent Slack look like today? Probably...
One Thing Miro + Airtable Show: Getting Cash Flow Positive Isn’t Magical
Bending Spoons just announced a definitive agreement to acquire Miro at a $1.355 billion enterprise value. Five weeks ago it announced Airtable at $1.285 billion, and that one just closed. Two of the better-known B2B brands of the last decade, sold to the same...
What VCs Are Looking For Now: $25B+ Exits. The New “Decacorn”
So Alex Kurland my co-investor in $2.3B Owner.com (Vertical AI for restaurants) just moved to growth partner at Menlo Ventures and put out a post and chart this week that explains how venture capital works in 2026: 10 years ago, VCs were hunting unicorns. Then...
Rule of 40 Is Half Dead: Growth Is All That Matters, Margins Above 25% Don’t Help, and Category Beats Both. The Latest From Kroll
Kroll published its Summer 2026 Global Software Sector Update, covering software M&A and public comps through June 30, 2026. It’s 20 pages of deal data with a lot of detail on what the market currently pays for B2B software. The headline numbers read like a...
Dear SaaStr: Why Do Many Startup CEOs Quit After Their Companies Are Acquired?
Dear SaaStr: Why Do Many Startup CEOs Quit After Their Companies Are Acquired? Five reasons: First, it’s very difficult for most founder-CEOs to work for someone else. They generally don’t mind working with others. They don’t even need to be “the boss”. But being told...
Dear SaaStr: How Do You Build a Real Exit Strategy?
Dear SaaStr: How Do You Build a Real Exit Strategy? First, bear in mind acquisitions are relatively rare. The vast majority of startups will never get one strong acquisition offer. Still, it’s not random. I’ve been through it twice as a founder and about...
When a 3.8x “Exit” Becomes 1.6x: The Gap Between Markups and Returns
One of our older SaaStr Fund companies was recently acquired. It is selling for 3.8x what we paid to get in years ago. On paper that reads like a clean triple. We won’t make 1.6x. That gap, 3.8x on the marquee valuation versus under 1.6x in the bank, is one of...
Three $3B B2B Acquisitions in 30 Days: Intercom/Fin, Cognite, and MaintainX. They All Bought the Same Thing: Data for AI
Three $3B B2B Acquisitions in 30 Days: Intercom/Fin, Cognite, and MaintainX In about a month, three B2B companies recently were acquired for right around $3 billion each. On the surface they have nothing to do with each other: Salesforce bought Fin (the company...
The PE Software Backlog: Will 1,000+ Unicorns Ever Get Sold or Go Public?
Per the Wall Street this week, private equity will need about nine years to clear its backlog of unsold portfolio companies. And that’s the conservative version. Bain’s 2026 Global Private Equity Report puts the whole industry at roughly 32,000 unsold...
It Doesn’t Really Matter When Your Competitor Gets Acquired. (Except It Means You Weren’t.)
There’s a common bit of advice we entrepreneurs and execs always get: worry less about the competition, and more about growing your own business. It’s good advice. But goodness — it’s hard to follow sometimes. Between your competitors’...
The Investments Where I’m Going to Lose All My Money
So when I started writing venture checks in 2013, I didn’t know what I was doing, but I had a strong start: First was Pipedrive co-leading seed, then acquired for $1.5B cash Second was Algolia leading U.S. seed, now at $200m+ ARR and an IPO candidate Third was...
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