Hello Danielle,

The many tragedies and conflicts occurring around the world made 2023 a challenging year in all walks of life. For Founder-owned business, challenges included navigating slowing demand, reduced investor confidence, a lack of committed acquirers, wage inflation, high interest rates and weakened balance sheets.

In spite of those considerable challenges, our clients on both sides of the Atlantic raised both Debt and Equity, acquired companies and achieved exciting Exits in 2023. Indeed, over the past 8 years, Acresis has helped 32 Founder-owned companies generate $924M of liquidity for themselves.

IS NOW THE TIME TO TAKE CHIPS OFF THE TABLE?

If your business is operating with ‘A’ grade metrics, you can still sell and exit successfully in 2024.

If you are a pure SAAS company, you can still sell typically at a 4.0x to 8.0x revenue multiple, if your business is:

• Meeting the ‘Rule of 40’ test  
• Growing at > 30% CAGR,
• Delivering > 80% gross margins
• Has > $5M ARR (Trailing Twelve Months)
• Is no worse than break even and ideally cash generative

If you are a Consulting and Tech Services company, you can still sell at a 6x to 10x EBITDA multiple, if your business is:

• Growing at > 20% CAGR, 
• Has gross margins > 50%
• Has Ebitda > 15%  
• Has > 30% of revenues which are recurring
• and is cash generative

However, if your business is still maturing with significant improvements ahead of you, then we recommend deferring a transaction until late 2024 or 2025. What is universally true on both sides of the Atlantic, is that both strategic/trade buyers and investors are subjecting potential transactions to greater scrutiny and transactions are only completing where buyers and investors have deep conviction for both the market and the deal in question. It is also worth noting that Investors are attracted to platforms with well researched market “roll up” strategies, ideally with a successful acquisition or two in the rear view mirror.

Running into 2024, our conclusion is clear: conditions are difficult, but well managed companies who are driving profitable growth can raise capital and can Exit successfully if they so choose.

2023 Year in Review

AMONG OUR FOUNDER CLIENTS

We want to recognize and celebrate the incredible success stories of our clients over the last year! Here are some of the highlights from 2023:

ROOSTER IS NAMED AN OFFICIAL SAAS PARTNER OF WORKDAY

We are very pleased to share that Kognitiv’s sister company – Rooster – now has Workday’s salesforce carrying the Rooster SKU !! The co-founders of Kognitiv – Luke Switkowski and Mark Grignon - along with Rooster co-founder Rod Jones – identified a talent acquisition scheduling functionality gap in Workday’s Recruiting module 3 years ago – and named their product “Rooster”. Since then, Rooster has gained over 60 live enterprise clients and Workday has certainly taken notice! Rooster is a SaaS product for Workday’s Recruiting module that allows interview scheduling with one click. Rooster was created to provide a simpler, more comprehensive and more consistent way to schedule interviews between the hiring team, managers, and prospective talent. Rooster is the perfect Workday hiring companion.

PEACOCK ENGINEERING SELLS TO BPD ZENITH

Congratulations to Alan, Roger and Mike, the Founders of UK based Peacock Engineering, on their sale to BPD Zenith.



Peacock are a leading provider of Enterprise Asset Management solutions and are a Gold Partner of both IBM and IFS. Peacock also provides its own proprietary mobile solution, Fingertip, which extends IBM’s Maximo solution with real time data links directly into the field. 

Read here for more details:  BPD Zenith acquires Peacock Engineering - Peacock Engineering

SCLOGIC COMPLETES GROWTH CAPITAL RAISE 



Congratulations to the SCLogic team – Mike Saldi, Mike Todd, Hollis, Paul and Trent for recently completing their growth capital raise!

SCLogic is headquartered in Annapolis, Maryland and provides digital transformation solutions for facilities, IT, and operations directors. Their software is a logistics platform that helps organizations expedite their Facilities’ digital transformation process through the tracking, chain of custody, and fulfillment of items and tasks across your entire facility. SCLogic’s customers are grouped primarily in 5 sectors: Banking & Insurance, Higher Education, Pharmaceutical Manufacturing, Hospital Systems and Government.

AWARD WINNING EMPLOYER OF CHOICE- MAKOSI HIRES ADDITIONAL EXECUTIVE TALENT

Congratulations to Darren Isaacs and Paul Emery, co-Founders of Makosi, for their continued investment in world-class executive talent. Makosi provides the world’s leading CPA firms with high-quality variable workforce solutions, including audit, assurance and advisory services.

Makosi welcomes Lindsay Gaal who has joined Makosi as its Chief People Officer. Previous to Makosi, Linsday was at Friedman LLP, a leading CPA firm, where she served in various senior roles such as COO and Chief People Officer. To further prove Makosi’s ability to attract top talent, Makosi was recently recognized and awarded as a “Top Employer” in South Africa.

MARON SYSTEMS SELLS TO VELA SOFTWARE

Congratulations to David, Mark, Chris, Jon and Steve, the Founders and owners of the UK- based software company, Maron Systems, on their sale to Vela Software.

 

Maron’s Oil Logistics, Accounting and Shipping software serves the world's largest energy, refining and shipping companies and occupies the space between ERPs and production systems. The software supports the function of “hydrocarbon logistics and inventory accounting”, a highly complex and critical capability. 

Read here for more details: Vela Software Group

The Latest at Acresis

We serve clients in North America and Europe that are:

• Founder-owned, Founder-led companies
• Privately-held (no external institutional investors)
• Need help with Growth, Liquidity and Wealth Creation
• Want to Exit in the next 1-3 years
• Have $5M to $50M in annual revenues
• In their Scale-Up phase of growth (not start-up)
• EBITDA that is breakeven (or better)
• Are based in North America and/or Europe
• Sectors: Technology, Software, Consulting, SaaS Channel Partners, Data and Business Services

Acresis has a team of 18 operating partners based across North America and Europe supported by an extensive stable of world class fractional experts, all specialists in their fields (sales, finance, technology, operations, marketing, leadership, human resources, etc).

In order to amplify our support to our Founders, we have developed a highly curated ecosystem of partners all of whom are highly relevant to our founders at various stages of their growth. For Founders who wish to Exit prudently and successfully, these Acresis ecosystem partners include: 

• Private Equity firms
• Lenders
• Corp Dev / M&A functions within large Enterprises
• Investment Bankers
• Lawyers
• Accountants
• Wealth Managers 

We are delighted to say that 2023 was a successful year for our founders, and we will see multiple further success stories to come in 2024!

Mark, Bill & the entire Acresis team,