Selling a SaaS or software company is one of the most consequential decisions a founder will make, and the advisor running the process determines a large part of the outcome.
Yet the market for advice is confusing. Lists of “best M&A advisors for SaaS” routinely group Goldman Sachs together with two-person boutiques, as if the right advisor for a $4 billion software carve-out is on the same shortlist as the right advisor for a $40 million SaaS exit. They are not the same business. They do not compete for the same deals.
In this post, we use Mergermarket data on every software M&A transaction from January 2015 to May 2026 to map what the advisor market actually looks like. The picture is sharper than any “top 10” list can show: three distinct tiers, very different economics, very different fits.
Table of Contents
II. Three Tiers, Three Different Businesses
- Tier 1: Bulge Bracket and Elite Boutiques
- Tier 2: Major Mid-Market and Big 4
- Tier 3: Sector Specialists and Lower Mid-Market
III. How to Choose the Right Advisor
IV. SaaS M&A in 2026: What Matters Now
What the Data Shows
We pulled the full Mergermarket league table for Computer Software financial advisors from January 2015 to May 2026. The dataset covers 22,915 transactions advised by 2,148 distinct firms. About half of those deals had publicly disclosed values, totaling more than $14 trillion in aggregate.
The market is heavily concentrated at the top. Just three advisors capture 28% of all disclosed software deal value. Ten advisors capture 61%. The remaining 39% of value is divided among 2,138 firms. Half of all advisors did exactly one software deal in eleven years.
| Rank tier | Number of advisors | Cumulative share of value |
|---|---|---|
| Top 1 (Goldman Sachs) | 1 | 13.5% |
| Top 5 | 5 | 44.2% |
| Top 10 | 10 | 61.1% |
| Top 50 | 50 | 90.8% |
| Top 100 | 100 | 96.2% |
| Everyone else | 2,048 | 3.8% |
This concentration is the first thing every founder should understand. Most “best advisor” rankings ignore it, which is why most “best advisor” rankings are misleading.
Three Tiers, Three Different Businesses
When you separate firms by what they actually do, three distinct tiers emerge in software M&A. Each tier has its own typical deal sizes, buyer relationships, fee economics, and process design. They are not in competition with each other. They serve different founders.
Goldman Sachs has advised on 607 software deals at an average disclosed deal size of $3.9 billion. Software Equity Group has advised on 29 software deals. They are not playing the same game, even though both will appear on lists titled “Best M&A advisors for SaaS.”
The chart above shows every named firm we cover in this post, plotted by total deals advised against average disclosed deal size. The three tiers stand out clearly.
Tier 1: Bulge Bracket and Elite Boutiques
Average deal size: $1B to $5B. 100 to 600 software deals each over 11 years. Combined share of value: ~58%.
This tier includes Goldman Sachs, JP Morgan, Morgan Stanley, Bank of America, Barclays, Citi, Evercore, Qatalyst Partners, UBS, Centerview, Lazard, Credit Suisse, Deutsche Bank, RBC, Jefferies, and Moelis. These are the firms running the headline-grabbing software deals.
Goldman alone advised on 13.5% of all disclosed software deal value over eleven years, with an average deal size of $3.9 billion across 607 deals. Qatalyst Partners has the highest average deal size in the dataset at $4.8 billion despite advising on only 106 deals. They take very few mandates and they are all huge.
Right for: public-company carve-outs, take-privates, $1B+ enterprise value deals, cross-border mega-mergers, IPO-adjacent processes, $500M+ growth rounds.
Wrong for: almost every founder reading this article. A bulge bracket bank running a $20 million SaaS exit would be a misallocation of resources on both sides. The minimum fee economics do not work, and the deal would be staffed by junior analysts.
Tier 2: Major Mid-Market and Big 4
Average deal size: $200M to $1B. 50 to 600 software deals each. Combined share of value: ~30%.
This is where most of the $100M+ software M&A actually happens. The mid-market investment banks here include William Blair, Stifel, Piper Sandler, Arma Partners, Rothschild, Houlihan Lokey, Raymond James, Robert W. Baird, Lincoln International, Harris Williams, Financial Technology Partners, TripleTree, and Union Square Advisors. Plus the corporate finance arms of PwC, Deloitte, KPMG, and EY.
Houlihan Lokey leads the volume game with 541 software deals at an average $407 million. William Blair is the closest of the major mid-market banks to a software specialist, with 464 deals at $805 million average. Arma Partners is the European pure-play, advising 170 software deals at $773 million average. TripleTree and Union Square Advisors are the two US sector-specialists in healthcare IT and software respectively, both with average deals north of $490 million.
The Big 4 corporate finance arms deserve a special mention. Combined, PwC, Deloitte, KPMG and EY advised on more than 2,300 software deals at roughly $190 million average. Their corporate finance teams are quietly massive players in software M&A and rarely show up in “best SaaS advisors” lists despite running more deals than any boutique.
Right for: software companies with $200M to $1B+ enterprise value, established mid-market businesses with predictable EBITDA, processes that need broad institutional buyer outreach. Big 4 firms work well for traditional businesses where audit and tax integration with the M&A advisory matters.
Wrong for: pre-EBITDA SaaS companies under $50M EV (often a poor staffing fit), founder-led businesses where the partner you pitched will not be the partner running the process. Most Tier 2 firms have minimum fee thresholds that effectively exclude lower mid-market deals.
Tier 3: Sector Specialists and Lower Mid-Market
Average deal size: $30M to $100M. 15 to 300 software deals each. Combined share of value: ~12%.
This is the tier that matters for most SaaS founders. It includes the international networks of tech-focused boutiques, such as Oaklins and the Globalscope network of independent member firms (which Aventis is part of), alongside standalone tech-focused boutiques like GP Bullhound, Cambon Partners, Drake Star, Shea & Co, AGC Partners, Software Equity Group, Bryan Garnier, Clearwater International, Clipperton, Vista Point, Mooreland, Klecha, Q Advisors, and Atlas Technology, plus many other sector boutiques not individually tracked in the league table.
Oaklins is the largest international network in our data, with 300 software deals at $68 million average. The Globalscope network, of which Aventis is a member firm, has combined coverage of 188 software deals across its independent member firms tracked in Mergermarket, placing the network ahead of GP Bullhound (120 deals) and Cambon Partners (124 deals) operating standalone. Software Equity Group, Drake Star, and Vista Point cluster in the $40-115 million average band.
An important caveat applies to this tier. Most Tier 3 firms run the bulk of their work in deals that are never publicly disclosed. The $5M-$30M SaaS exits that this tier specializes in rarely have terms reported to Mergermarket, so the disclosed-deal averages here typically reflect a firm’s larger transactions rather than its median engagement. Aventis Advisors itself, like several other well-known SaaS-focused boutiques, does not appear individually in the league table because most of our deals fall in the undisclosed lower mid-market band. Absence from the league table is not an indicator of quality at this end of the market. References, sector knowledge, and tombstones matter more than league table position.
Right for: founder-led SaaS companies, $5M to $100M enterprise value, companies that need SaaS-specific positioning (ARR, NRR, cohort economics, Rule of 40), processes where senior partners actually run the deal, cross-border SaaS deals where the international network matters.
Wrong for: $500M+ public-company mandates, founders who want a low-touch broker listing rather than a competitive process, highly regulated transactions that require a balance-sheet bank.
How to Choose the Right Advisor
Most “best advisor” lists tell you which firms exist. They do not help you decide. Here is how we would think about it.
Match your deal size to the right tier first. Before evaluating any individual firm, work out which tier you belong in. A $20M EV SaaS deal goes to a Tier 3 specialist. A $200M EV deal could go to either Tier 2 or a strong Tier 3 firm depending on buyer universe. A $1B+ deal goes to Tier 1 or 2. Mismatching tiers is the single most common mistake founders make.
Within a tier, ask for the firm’s median completed deal size. Not the headline. The median. A Tier 3 firm whose median is $10M may not have buyer relationships for a $50M process. A Tier 2 firm whose median is $200M will not give a $40M deal real attention.
Test SaaS fluency in the first conversation. Ask the advisor to explain how they would position your NRR, customer concentration, gross margin, and Rule of 40 to a buyer. The gap between SaaS-native and SaaS-curious advisors is visible within fifteen minutes.
Ask who actually runs the process. Senior partner pitches followed by junior-led execution is the most common failure mode in M&A advisory. Get a written commitment on who leads buyer outreach, who negotiates the LOI, and who is in the room for diligence calls.
Look at the research the firm publishes. Advisors who publish current valuation data on their sector are forced to be accurate, because their public material is checked by every buyer they pitch. Advisors who publish nothing rely on memory, generic databases, and outdated comps.
Understand the fee structure. Most software M&A advisors charge a monthly retainer plus a success fee. Retainers typically run $5K to $15K per month. Success fees scale inversely to deal size: 1-3% at Tier 1, 2-5% at Tier 2, 3-8% at Tier 3 boutiques.
Check for buyer-side conflicts. Firms that advise both buyers and sellers in the same sector face structural conflicts. An advisor who represented a PE firm last quarter may negotiate softly against that same buyer on your behalf.
SaaS M&A in 2026: What Matters Now
The market has reset. As of March 2026, the median public SaaS company trades at 3.4x EV/Revenue, down from a 2021 peak above 18.0x. Private SaaS M&A multiples have followed, with the median falling to 3.1x in early 2026 versus 6.3x in 2021. (See our SaaS Valuation Multiples post for the full data.) AI disruption fears are repricing the entire sector. Buyers are pickier. Diligence is harder. Earnouts are back.
In this environment, three things matter more than they used to.
Positioning. Buyers do not pay premium multiples for a SaaS company. They pay premium multiples for a SaaS company they understand to be defensible against AI disruption, growing efficiently, and serving a market large enough to matter. The job of the advisor is to build that case in the materials and defend it through diligence.
Process discipline. Slow processes lose value. Buyers re-trade when they sense weakness, and they sense weakness when timelines slip. A tight, structured process protects value. A loose process loses it.
Deal structure. When headline multiples compress, terms do more of the work. Working capital targets, escrow size, indemnification caps, earnout design, rollover equity. These are where experienced advisors earn their fees. A founder negotiating these terms alone is negotiating against a buyer who does this every week.
About Aventis Advisors
Aventis Advisors is an M&A advisor for SaaS and software companies, with offices in Warsaw and New York. We work with founders across Europe and North America on sell-side mandates, buy-side searches, and capital raises in vertical SaaS, horizontal SaaS, AI-native software, and IT services.
We belong squarely in Tier 3 and we are honest about it. We do not pretend to compete with Goldman Sachs on $4 billion deals or with Houlihan Lokey on broad institutional auctions. We compete with the other tech-focused mid-market boutiques, and there are four things we believe set us apart inside that group.
Our process is research-led. We publish quarterly valuation research covering SaaS, software, IT services, and AI. The Aventis SaaS Index tracks 70 listed SaaS companies, and our private deal database covers more than 1,000 software M&A transactions since 2015. When we go to market with a client, we know what comparable companies have actually traded for, not what brokers say they have traded for. This shows up in the CIM, in buyer conversations, and in negotiations.
We are an AI-native firm. We use AI throughout our workflow for deal sourcing, buyer mapping, document drafting, and analysis. The result is faster turnaround on the work that traditionally bottlenecks on associates, and more senior time spent on judgment and negotiation. Most boutiques talk about senior attention. We have re-engineered the production process to actually deliver it.
Our advice is honest, including the option not to sell. We believe the world would be better off with fewer but better quality M&A deals, done at the right moment for the company and its owners. If the timing is wrong, the price expectations are unrealistic, or the company would be better off running for cash flow, we say so. The wrong deal is worse than no deal.
Our buyer network is global through Globalscope. Aventis is a member firm of Globalscope, an international M&A advisory network of independent member firms with combined coverage of 188 disclosed software deals from 2015 to 2026. For European SaaS founders looking at US strategics, or US founders looking at European or Asian buyers, this matters. Cross-border deals are where weak buyer networks fail.
Every engagement is led by a senior advisor from first conversation through close, with no junior handoffs once the deal is live. We are strongest for SaaS founders with $1M to $30M+ in revenue who want a competitive process, real research-backed positioning, and a senior team they can actually reach.
Get in touch with us to discuss what your business could be worth and how the process looks.
Data sources: Mergermarket Computer Software league table, January 2015 to 7 May 2026, USD. All deal counts based on the full league table. All average deal sizes computed from deals with disclosed values only. Aventis Advisors analysis.
