A Super Primer on Evaluating and Acquiring a Software Company

March 28, 2025
by an investor from Harvard University - Harvard Business School in Toronto, ON, Canada
Today's episode is all about the non-obvious considerations, highly specific to the enterprise software business model, that must form a core part of any diligence and deal structuring process. We break the episode down into 3 segments:
In Part 1, I discuss several financial considerations that differentiate a software acquisition & diligence process from a more "traditional" one.
In part 2, I discuss several product-specific considerations that prospective acquirors need to pay particular attention to. This is the arguably the most important segment for prospective acquirors to listen to, as it presents ways in which non-technical CEOs can perform the early innings of technical due diligence, and should also help them understand and interpret the results of a technical diligence process performed by a third-party advisor
Finally, in Part 3, I outline 5 very different ways in which prospective acquirors can go about structuring the acquisition of a software company, because not all software investment theses are created equally – not at all, in fact.
Please enjoy! (...and please don't attempt to purchase a software company before listening!)
A Super Primer on Evaluating and Acquiring a Software Company
from College of the Holy Cross in Millis, MA 02054, USA
in Vancouver, BC, Canada