Filed under: exit
9 storiesThe archive, indexed. Every story carries its tags at the foot of the page.
Six terms to pin down in a letter of intent
Founders argue hard over the valuation and leave payment structure, exclusivity and non-competes to be sorted out later. Later is when the buyer has the leverage.
Two $1.3bn exits in five weeks, both priced under 3x ARR
Bending Spoons has agreed to buy Miro at a $1.355bn enterprise value, five weeks after announcing Airtable at $1.285bn. About a third of the combined price was money the two companies already had in the bank.
Kroll: growth pays 3x, margin above 25% pays nothing
Kroll's Summer 2026 software data puts public companies growing above 20% at 7.2x revenue and shrinking ones at 2.4x. Profitability barely moves the number.
Tara Bosch sold SmartSweets for $360m and is starting again
The exit figure is on the record. The detail of how she got there, and what she is building next, is not yet.
Founders' campaign asks Chancellor to reverse three tax moves
Stop the Creep wants employers' National Insurance cut back, entrepreneurial reliefs restored and a fixed roadmap for business tax. Two of the three land directly on what a founder keeps.
Inc: 65% of small firms carry a books problem that kills sales
Accounts built to satisfy a tax return are not accounts built to satisfy a buyer. A US report puts the share of small businesses with that gap at 65 per cent.
Signing the LOI is where founders start losing the deal
A letter of intent feels like the finish line. Five things go wrong after it, and most of them cost the seller money.
Swansea vodka brand sold to Sazerac in reported £500m deal
Charlie Morgan and Jackson Quinn started Au Vodka in their home city in 2015. Eleven years on, the American owner of Southern Comfort has agreed to buy it.
Founder rebuilt her sale process after four deals collapsed
Christine Slocumb says one buyer walked a week before closing. She rewrote how she screened the next one.