When I read PE multiples in the 3-5x ARR range, it seems like a fire sale compared to valuation prices. At 3x, you might just be giving it all back in liquidation preferences.
Am I missing something, or is this just founders who are sick of running the business and want to do something else, or are there lots of capital efficient companies in this range where 3-5x revenue is a good deal?
I agree that good bankers are hard to come by and unfortunately most simply forward decks to a broad list, and they won’t get founders the outcome they deserve. My point was more about readiness for a sale. Having gone through it, I’ve come to believe there are certain prerequisites for even kicking off a process, primarily business fundamentals and pre-existing relationships.
In my experience, a banker can amplify an existing market, but they can’t create one from scratch (at least not easily).
For example, in our case we had roughly six serious inbound inquiries before engaging bankers. While our bankers (and they are great) ran a broad discovery process and put us in front of many potential acquirers, the eventual buyer was one that reached out to us unsolicitedly rather than being introduced through the process.