the serial acquirer Market Observatory · 2026-Q3

Guess what they paid

Six real acquisitions by European software serial acquirers. You see what the buyer disclosed; you guess what was paid per unit of annual revenue. Every answer comes from a filed account, and every reveal names its source.

Harder than it looks — and that is the point

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0.77x–2.71x paid per unit of annual revenue for small, mature vertical software — 13 observations
3.14x–13.95x paid for larger, growing cloud businesses — 14 observations
0.43x the gap between them, where no measured price falls

What was paid, per unit of revenue

BuyerAcquired company Revenue, EUR mYear Price paidBasis
Hawk Infinity ASMaskinpakking AS (90 per cent)27.620240.53xscaled from a stake
Hawk Infinity ASNordic Flow AS (100 per cent)19.720240.77xmeasured
Bending Spoons S.p.A.Brightcove US178.020251.08xmeasured
Software Circle plcvintage 20238.520231.18xreconstructed
EverfieldInforum SARL + Codngo SARL1.220241.33xmeasured
EverfieldMyKnowledgeMap Ltd3.120241.36xmeasured
Bending Spoons S.p.A.Eventbrite US258.320261.73xmeasured
EverfieldFenz Software GmbH3.320242.08xmeasured
Topicus.comCS (individually material acquisition)107.720252.08xmeasured
Software Circle plcvintage 20255.120252.10xreconstructed
Bending Spoons S.p.A.Evernote US87.920232.10xmeasured
EverfieldParkhere GmbH3.720242.11xmeasured
Hawk Infinity ASDigiflow AS (67 per cent)27.120242.27xscaled from a stake
Bending Spoons S.p.A.AOL (AOL Holdco I LLC) US560.520262.30xmeasured
Banyan Software UKSoftera Oy (Finland, ERP)3.520242.36xmeasured
ClearCourseThinkSmart Group2.220242.63xmeasured
Hawk Infinity ASBedriftshelsen AS (100 per cent)6.620242.71xmeasured
TeamSystemMultifatture S.r.l. (IT, property-management software)7.720253.14xmeasured
Bending Spoons S.p.A.Vimeo US368.720253.26xmeasured
Software Circle plcvintage 20241.320243.92xreconstructed
The Access GroupSTAAH8.620254.02xmeasured
TeamSystemClicData Sas (FR, data analytics)3.820254.16xmeasured
VismaCXM Holding (MobilExpense)23.620244.22xmeasured
The Access GroupOnboarded + Smart AI3.120254.75xmeasured
The Access GroupDonorfy3.320255.46xmeasured
The Access GroupPaytronix72.920255.86xmeasured
VismaConta Azul47.320255.91xmeasured
Vismaother 31 companies (aggregate)87.420246.17xmeasured
Vismaother 21 companies (aggregate)102.620256.70xmeasured
Hawk Infinity ASMyKid AS (67 per cent)2.220247.68xscaled from a stake
The Access GroupTradify17.820257.83xmeasured
TeamSystemRochelle Luxco (Sellsy + Quipu, FR/ES)23.720259.47xmeasured
TeamSystemGolden Soft S.L. (ES, practice software)1.9202513.95xmeasured
Price paid per unit of the acquired company's annual revenue. “Measured” means consideration and revenue both appear in the acquisition note — nothing computed but the division. “Scaled from a stake” means a majority stake was bought and the figure is grossed up to 100%, which a control premium would push lower. “Reconstructed” means the price was derived from disclosed revenue and goodwill bridges, because the buyer never states it per acquisition. The buyers are European; five of the 33 acquisitions in this table are not. Targets outside Europe carry their region beside the name (US). They are a different market and are shown so they can be read separately. Amounts are converted to euro at the ECB annual reference rate; the multiples are ratios within one currency and are not converted.

Tracked but not in the table: Constellation Software, Chapters Group AG, Lumine Group. They are in the register for capital deployed and deal counts, but none of them states a price against the revenue of a single acquisition — so there is nothing to put in the last column. Chapters Group discloses enough for a ceiling only, which is not a price paid.

How much they deploy

A price is only half the picture. The other half is how much capital a buyer actually puts to work — and buying often is not the same strategy as deploying heavily.

BuyerCapital deployed
EUR m		 as filed AcquisitionsAverage cheque
EUR m		 YearBasis
Bending Spoons S.p.A.1’733.71’959.1USD3866.87 across 22026floor
Constellation Software1’429.61’615.5USD——2025filed
Visma967.2967.2EUR2834.542025filed
The Access Group696.6596.8GBP977.402025filed
TeamSystem624.5624.5EUR2256.77 across 112025floor
Topicus.com390.4390.4EUR1—2025filed
Hawk Infinity AS343.83’998.2NOK1034.382024filed
Chapters Group AG119.7119.7EUR——2025filed
Everfield117.2117.2EUR167.322024floor
Banyan Software UK50.443.2GBP510.072025floor
ClearCourse35.730.2GBP57.142024floor
Software Circle plc14.112.1GBP27.042026filed
Converted to euro at the ECB annual reference rate for each buyer’s own reporting year, so the column can be read down. The figure as filed stands beside it. “Filed” is the number from the buyer’s own cash flow statement. “Floor” is the sum of the individually named acquisitions and can only be too low, because unnamed ones are missing. Where a floor covers fewer acquisitions than the buyer made that year, the average cheque says how many it rests on — it is the average of the priced deals, not of all of them.

Bending Spoons S.p.A. deploys the most (1’734 EUR m); Visma makes the most acquisitions (28); Software Circle plc writes the smallest average cheque (7.0 EUR m). Those are three different buyers.

What they owe

Buying companies takes money, and most of these buyers borrow it. Net debt measured against the buyer’s own revenue puts them on one scale regardless of size — and the range is wider than the price range.

BuyerNet debt
÷ revenue		 Net debtRevenue Year
TeamSystem3.25x3’4441’058EUR m2025
Hawk Infinity AS2.75x2’134775NOK m2024
Bending Spoons S.p.A.2.19x3’6151’649USD m31 March 2026 interim
Everfield1.63x8250EUR m2024
Chapters Group AG0.91x165181EUR m2025
Visma0.74x2’3593’168EUR m2025
Vitec Software Group0.69x2’4993’633SEK m2025
Software Circle plc0.51x1122GBP m2026
Addnode Group0.43x2’4655’793SEK m2025
Constellation Software0.13x1’46511’623USD m2025
Net debt, not total liabilities. Interest-bearing borrowings less cash. Trade payables, provisions and deferred revenue are excluded — and for software companies deferred revenue is large, so the full balance-sheet figure would be higher. Each buyer is shown in its own currency; the ratio is a ratio and needs no conversion.

TeamSystem carries 3.25 times its annual revenue in net debt, Constellation Software just 0.13 — a 26-fold difference between two firms doing the same thing.

The four heaviest borrowers are privately held (TeamSystem, Hawk Infinity AS, Bending Spoons S.p.A., Everfield), and that is what a sponsor-owned structure looks like: a listed buyer can issue shares, a sponsor-owned one issues debt. But it is a tendency, not a rule — Visma is private and sits inside the listed range. Ownership predicts the extremes here, not the middle. Bending Spoons S.p.A. was privately held at that balance sheet date and has since gone public (30 June 2026); the money it raised is not in the 2026 figure, so its ratio today is lower. Bending Spoons S.p.A. is shown at an interim date. Its last audited balance sheet (2025) showed 2’041 of net debt and a ratio of 1.56x; three months later it was 3’615 and 2.19x. The register counts its 2026 acquisitions, so it shows the borrowing that paid for them rather than the figure from before.

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Last updated 2026-08-26. If what the page does changes, this text changes with it.

Method

Method. Every figure is read from a filed annual account or a company's own published report, and carries its source, the date it was retrieved and the version of the code that parsed it. Nothing is modelled, estimated or filled in. Where a figure could not be established it is absent rather than approximated — 47 of the 74 acquisitions on file are recorded without a usable price for exactly that reason.

Disclosure. The author has commercial ties to the European vertical software industry. No position is held in, and no compensation has been received from, any company named here. Figures sourced from company filings and third-party market surveys as cited; this is research, not investment advice.

Imprint

PW Business Consulting GmbH
c/o Philippe Willi
Schönaustrasse 19
8707 Uetikon am See
Switzerland
CHE-114.549.793
contact@theserialacquirer.com

Market Observatory · 2026-Q3 · 13 buyers tracked · 74 acquisitions on file · largest single year of capital deployed: Bending Spoons S.p.A., 1’734 EUR m in 2026