The SaaS PE market is heating up again, and Thoma Bravo just made a big statement buying SaaS restaurant pioneer Olo for $2 Billion.
Yesterday, Thoma Bravo announced they’re acquiring restaurant tech platform Olo (NYSE: OLO) for $2 billion in an all-cash deal. That’s $10.25 per share — a whopping 65% premium over Olo’s closing price on April 30th (the last trading day before acquisition rumors started swirling).
Quick Stats:
- Founded: 2005 (20-year-old company)
- 2024 Revenue: $285M (up 25% YoY from $228M in 2023)
- Q1 2025 Revenue: $80.7M (up 21% YoY), $323M annualized run rate
- Profitability: $1.8M net income in Q1 2025 (GAAP profitable)
- Key Metrics: $911 ARPU (+12% YoY), 111% NRR, 88k active locations
- Customers: 750+ restaurant brands across 88,000+ locations
- Employees: 617 in the US as of Dec 2024
- Acquisition Price: $2B ($10.25/share, 65% premium)
Why This Deal Matters for B2B and SaaS
This isn’t just another PE rollup. It’s a signal that vertical SaaS platforms with sticky revenue are back in favor with sophisticated buyers. Here’s what caught Thoma Bravo’s attention:
The Fundamentals Are Solid
- Over 750 restaurant brands served across 88,000+ global locations
- Clients include household names like Denny’s, P.F. Chang’s, Nando’s, and Cold Stone Creamery
- Recently turned profitable with $1.81M net income in Q1 2025
- Founded in 2005 — this is a mature, battle-tested platform
The Turnaround Story Olo had to make some tough cuts, laying off 9% of staff in 2024 following an 11% reduction in 2023. But the pruning worked. The company emerged leaner and finally profitable, exactly the kind of efficiency story PE loves to see.
What Thoma Bravo Sees
With $184 billion in assets under management, Thoma Bravo doesn’t write $2B checks lightly. They’re betting on a few key trends:
- Restaurant digitization is permanent — COVID accelerated adoption, but the convenience factor means there’s no going back
- Vertical SaaS wins — Horizontal tools are getting commoditized, but deep industry expertise creates real moats
- Private equity can unlock growth — Taking Olo private removes quarterly earnings pressure and allows for longer-term strategic bets
As Thoma Bravo’s Peter Hernandez put it: “Noah is a visionary who helped create the digital ordering category for restaurants, and Olo’s platform has earned the trust of many of the world’s most iconic restaurant brands.”
The Bigger Picture
This deal is part of a broader pattern. In April, Thoma Bravo agreed to acquire Boeing’s Digital Aviation Solutions unit for $10.55 billion. They’re clearly bullish on B2B software again.
For SaaS founders and operators, here are the key takeaways:
- Profitability matters more than growth — Olo’s path to acquisition came through disciplined cost management, not hypergrowth
- Vertical expertise commands premiums — Olo’s deep restaurant industry knowledge made them irreplaceable to their customers
- PE is back — After a slow 2023-2024, sophisticated buyers are writing big checks again for the right assets
The deal is expected to close by end of 2025, and Olo will become a private company. For an industry that’s been wondering when PE appetite would return to SaaS, this $2B bet is a pretty clear answer.
And a look back at Olo just post-IPO here:
Other Major PE + M&A SaaS Deals in 2025
The Olo acquisition isn’t happening in isolation. 2025 is shaping up to be a stronger year for PE + Corporate M&A SaaS deals, with Q1 alone seeing 210 enterprise SaaS M&A transactions totaling $29.1 billion.
Here are the other mega-deals that show PE’s renewed love for SaaS:
Q1 2025 Blockbusters:
- Clearlake Capital → ModMed: $5.3B – Healthcare SaaS platform serving specialty medical practices
- KKR (via Cotiviti) → Edifecs: $3.1B – Healthcare data and claims processing software
- ServiceNow → Moveworks: $2.9B – AI-powered enterprise assistant (strategic, not PE)
- Xero -> Melio for $2.5B – Triple Xero’s payments footprint in North America
- CoreWeave → Weights & Biases: $1.7B – AI developer platform
Other Notable 2025 Activity:
- Francisco Partners → Quorum Software (March 2025) – Energy industry software from Thoma Bravo
- Francisco Partners → AdvancedMD: $1.13B (October 2024, closed 2025) – Medical practice management software
- Vista Equity + Blackstone → Smartsheet: $8.4B (closed January 2025) – Work management platform
The Numbers Tell the Story:
- Q1 2025 saw 636 SaaS M&A transactions, up 19% quarter-over-quarter and 31% year-over-year
- Private equity-led deal count hit a new quarterly record at 73 deals
- PE drove 61% of all SaaS transactions in 2024
- Median valuation multiples held steady at 4.2x revenue, with average at 6.0x
What’s Driving the Surge: The appetite is being fueled by several factors: AI integration creating new value propositions, improving profitability metrics across SaaS companies, and the classic PE playbook working well with recurring revenue models. As one report noted, companies with 120%+ net retention rates are commanding 11.7x revenue multiples—a 109% premium over the median.
