the serial acquirer Market Observatory · 2026-Q3

How much they deploy

What each buyer actually put to work, in euro, and across how many acquisitions.

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——2025cumulative
Visma967.2967.2EUR2834.542025filed
The Access Group696.6596.8GBP977.402025filed
TeamSystem624.5624.5EUR2256.77 across 112025floor
Topicus.com390.4390.4EUR1—2025filed
Hawk Infinity AS159.21’851.2NOK1411.372024filed
Chapters Group AG119.7119.7EUR——2025filed
Everfield117.2117.2EUR167.322024floor
Banyan Software UK50.443.2GBP510.072025floor
ClearCourse35.730.2GBP57.142024floor
Software Circle plc14.112.1GBP27.042026cumulative
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. “Cumulative” is the step between two disclosed running totals — the buyer publishes what it has deployed since inception but not what it spent in the year, so the year is our subtraction rather than its 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.

The rest of the register

Guess what serial acquirers paid →What European software serial acquirers actually pay, from filed accounts. Guess the price, then see the source.
What was paid, per unit of revenue →Every disclosed acquisition price in the register, one row per observation, coloured by how well it is evidenced.
What they owe, and what it costs →Net debt against revenue, the interest each buyer actually pays, and every credit facility on file with its terms.
What their own capital costs →An estimate of what each buyer pays for capital, set against the 20-30% return they demand of the companies they buy.
Method, limits and imprint →How every figure in this register is sourced, what the sample does not support, and the legal notices.

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Figures as at 2026-09-08. Every number on this page comes from a filed account or a company’s own published report — how, and what it does not support.