Who Is Buying Startups in 2025: Strategics, Rollups & PE

Strategics, Rollups, and PE: Who Actually Buys Companies Like Yours

Some founders build toward a buyer that doesn’t exist.

They imagine a strategic acquirer will spot the brilliance of their product and offer a generous multiple. Or that a rollup will swoop in, recognize the synergies, and move quickly. Or that private equity will see the long-term potential and write a check big enough to fund the next chapter.

But most of those buyers aren’t buying what you’re selling, at least not in the way you’re selling it. If you're building with an exit in mind, it's worth knowing who acquires founder-led companies, and what they're really looking for when they do. Because while most founders fantasize about getting acquired, very few are building something that's acquirable by anyone outside their imagination.

The Buyer You’re Imagining vs. the One Who’s Real

 Acquirers don’t buy “vision.” Not anymore. The idealized buyer wants your product, your team, your culture, your roadmap. The real buyer wants your customers, your cashflow, and as few headaches as possible. If they can integrate your company with minimal friction, and it moves their metrics? You’ve got a shot.

Buyers pay for fit. Strategic fit. Operational fit. Financial fit. Not ambition. Not intent. Fit. Founders often get distracted chasing the “perfect buyer” or “ideal strategic” when they’d be better off asking: who benefits most from owning this business, and how painful would that transition be?

Here's what I see a lot of founders get stuck on:

Strategics: Slow, Political, and Rarely Urgent

Strategics are the dream exit for most founders. A big tech or industry incumbent notices your company, sees the value, and buys you for a life-changing number because it aligns with their roadmap. That can happen. It just usually doesn’t.

Strategic acquirers are big organizations (think the big names in any space like Hubspo in CRM or Stripe in payments). They move slowly. There are internal domains. Budgets are allocated quarterly or annually, and acquisitions, especially under $100M, are rarely prioritized unless there’s a fire to put out.

We worked with a founder running a $4M ARR DevTools company with top-tier enterprise adoption. They had months of friendly corp dev convos with a well-known public company. Everyone seemed aligned. Then, silence. Why? The internal product team had decided to build something adjacent, and corp dev didn’t have the mandate to override them.

This happens constantly. Strategics buy companies to fill critical holes or block threats. Not because they liked your pitch. Unless you're solving a current, visible pain, and they don’t have the team to solve it themselves, you're a wishlist item, not a priority.

Even when a deal is on the table, it's rarely fast. Expect months of cross-departmental alignment, risk review, and “just one more meeting.” And if your company doesn’t plug in easily, same tech stack, same customer base, same compliance standards, it’s probably not worth the effort to them.

When do strategics buy?

• You're solving a priority problem they can’t ignore.

• You're starting to gain market share in a segment they’re neglecting.

• A competitor is circling, and they’d rather pay than fight.

Otherwise, interest isn’t intent. It’s exploration.

Rollups: Operational Machines, Not Impulse Buyers

Rollups get a reputation for speed. When they're actively consolidating a space, founders assume they'll be the next to get a call. And if you’re in-market with a recognizable niche, that’s not off-base.

But rollups don’t buy on hype or narrative. They buy on spreadsheet logic: they’re usually private equity-backed and laser-focused on operational leverage. They want to buy multiple companies in the same vertical, strip out redundancy, and grow the whole portfolio more efficiently.

If your business has stable revenue, high gross margins, low churn, and repeatable processes, you’re going to catch their eye. If it’s founder-reliant, operationally messy, or not profitable? You’re noise.

One founder we advised ran a vertical SaaS company doing $6.5M ARR with 28% EBITDA. They weren’t growing fast, but the business was sticky, clean, and scalable. A rollup made an all-cash offer within 45 days. No negotiations, no fluff. The numbers worked.

Compare that to another founder at $3M ARR with negative margins and a team of 17, none of whom had job descriptions. Same category, same market, zero interest.

Rollups optimize, they don’t nurture. They buy systems, not stories.

When do rollups buy?

• You’re in their target vertical.

• Your financials are consistent and easy to plug in.

• Your team can either be absorbed or replaced without major disruption.

The fastest path to a rollup deal is looking like a clean cog, not a snowflake.

Private Equity: Efficient, Cold, and Focused on Control

Founders often misunderstand private equity. They think PE will fund their vision, help them grow, and give them more support than a VC.

That’s rarely how it plays out.

PE firms buy cash flow. They’re not looking for bets, they’re looking for control. If they can’t model out a clear return with high confidence, they’re not making an offer.

You might be “interesting,” but they’re not in the business of interesting. They’re in the business of multiplying money and exiting cleanly within a defined timeline.

We’ve seen both sides of this. A founder with a $12M ARR healthtech company doing 30% margins fielded three offers in one quarter. Why? Bootstrapped. Recurring revenue. Operational levers everywhere. Clean diligence.

Another founder running a high-profile DTC brand doing $10M topline with no profit thought PE would love their “community flywheel.” The offer was 60% upfront, 40% earnout, and a mandatory CEO replacement. They passed.

PE isn’t buying you. They’re buying the machine. Ideally, without the founder involved at all.

When do PE firms buy?

• You’re profitable (or very close).

• There’s fat to trim or channels to scale.

• You’re in a space where they already own similar assets and can plug you in.

And if you're founder-led with no clear succession plan? Expect less cash up front and more strings attached.

So, Who Actually Buys Companies Like Yours?

If you're doing $5M–$20M in revenue, with stable margins, strong retention, and a real niche, you’re probably acquirable. But not because your story is compelling or your product is beautiful. Because someone else can clearly benefit from owning what you’ve built.

Buyers don’t want to be convinced. They want to be sure.

They want:

• Gross margins that can scale

• Customers that stick

• Systems that run without you

• Clean books, contracts, and compliance

• Integration that doesn’t break what they already have

If you’re founder-dependent, margin-light, or messy under the hood, you’ll still get conversations, but not offers.

What Actually Moves the Needle

Thinking about an exit? These are the things that matter more than next quarter’s growth:

• Profitability or path to it: No one’s financing burn in 2025 unless you’re a must-have.

• Founder independence: If you’re still approving invoices and running product, that’s a risk, not a feature.

• Deal hygiene: Sloppy books, customer contracts on Notion, or “verbal” terms don’t just slow things down; they erode trust.

• Strategic clarity: If it’s not obvious who should buy you and why, you're not positioned; you’re just hoping.

Also, urgency kills value. If you’re exiting because you’re tired or low on cash, your leverage is gone before the first call.

Thinking about your own exit? Start building toward one before you need to. Most great deals go to companies that were prepared, whether they knew it or not. If you're looking to exit, get in touch.