Sam Youssef and Steph Manos founded Valsoft in Montreal in 2015, made a first acquisition in 2016 and have since built a group of more than 150 vertical market software companies across more than 20 industries. We count 129 Valsoft software acquisitions in our records from 2016 to 2025, half of them in the last three years.
Its targets are small. The Globe and Mail reported in January 2024 that Valsoft looks for software vendors with US$5M to US$10M of revenue and pays about one to two times sales, the low end of the market. Valsoft describes a permanent capital mindset, and it is a fast and dependable buyer.
For a seller the useful counterweight is competition. The profile Valsoft wants, mission-critical software with loyal customers, draws other buyers too, and a second bid is the clearest test of its price.
Our list of Valsoft’s deals combines Mergermarket with its releases and filings. Criteria and terms come from those releases, its brochure for sellers, the pages of its operating groups and its press interviews, and the prices behind our multiples from company registries, a listed seller and a listed target.
Valsoft Operating Groups and Portfolio Companies
Valsoft buys through seven operating groups, created in October 2025, and through a corporate M&A team led by Joseph Khoubbieh, its Chief Investment Officer. Each group sources and executes deals within its own market, so an approach can come from a group or from corporate. Its website lists them:
| Group | Led by | How the group describes itself |
|---|---|---|
| Aspire Software | Michael Assi, CEO and Managing Partner, also Valsoft’s COO | Runs Valsoft’s travel and leisure software businesses; the operating arm of Valsoft before the groups were formed |
| Edelweiss Software Group | Anthony Caruso, Managing Partner | A permanent basecamp for vertical software |
| Fluent Software Group | Christopher Malouf, Managing Partner | Invests in mission-critical software businesses |
| Helios Software Group | Managing partner unlisted | A lasting home for vertical software companies |
| Lighthouse Software Group | Gaurav Goyal, Managing Partner | Guides strong software companies toward enduring success |
| Manos Software Group | Joe Farruggia, Managing Partner | Helps exceptional software teams scale |
| TAG Software Group | Costa Tagalakis, Managing Partner | Acquires and develops essential software companies |
The groups are new: every acquisition counted here, from 2015 to 2025, was made by Valsoft or Aspire Software, and since the start of 2026 the groups have been buying under their own names. Valsoft says each group provides governance, planning and benchmarking for the companies inside it, so the group that buys your company is the one you report to after closing.
How Much Valsoft Buys
Valsoft’s first acquisitions came in 2016, and its pace has risen in steps since: 20 deals in the four years to 2019, then 109 from 2020 to 2025, with a peak of 25 in 2023 and 21 in 2025.
The money behind the pace has grown with it. Viking Global Investors bought a minority stake in 2022; Coatue and Viking led US$170M of growth funding in January 2024, which BetaKit reported as a mix of debt and equity; and in December 2024 Portage Capital Solutions led a further US$150M of growth equity with PROPELR Growth and Viking. The Globe and Mail reported a valuation above US$2bn at that round, revenue above US$550M, operating earnings above US$125M, 107 companies with more than 3,500 employees, and a team of 60 M&A dealmakers. Valsoft also draws on a bank credit line shared by TD, BMO and National Bank.
What Size of Company Valsoft Buys
Valsoft’s brochure for sellers sets a revenue range of $3M to $50M and up, and says it is flexible on deal size. It splits targets into three profiles: growth companies with $1M to $10M of revenue, growing 20 percent a year or more and earning little EBITDA; established businesses with $3M to $50M of revenue and flat or slow growth; and market leaders in the same revenue range with meaningful EBITDA. For founder-run North American companies the brochure gives $3M to $25M of revenue and $1M to $5M of EBITDA. Aspire Software publishes the same $3M to $50M range.
Three of the acquisitions carry a reported enterprise value, so we added the prices disclosed by a listed seller and in the annual accounts of Valsoft’s UK holding company, which reports the consideration paid for each company it buys. That gives 14 acquisitions from 2019 to 2025 with a price, at a median of $6.7M. Six of the 14 cost below $5M, and one, the takeover of a listed company, cost above $25M. Eleven of the prices come from the UK accounts, so the set leans to UK deals. The Globe and Mail’s account of its targets, small vendors with US$5M to US$10M of revenue, points the same way.
What Valsoft Buys
Every acquisition counted here is a software business; Valsoft also buys IT services firms. Inside software the spread is wide: Valsoft said in 2023 that it owned companies in almost 40 verticals, and the largest vertical holds 15 percent of the deals.
| Vertical | Acquisitions |
|---|---|
| Industrial, energy and manufacturing | 19 |
| Other niche verticals | 16 |
| Travel and hospitality | 15 |
| Healthcare and life sciences | 12 |
| Supply chain, logistics and transport | 11 |
| Government and public sector | 10 |
| Media and publishing | 8 |
| HR and workforce management | 7 |
| Financial services | 6 |
| Real estate and construction | 4 |
| Developer tools and IT infrastructure | 4 |
The table shows every vertical with at least four deals, 112 of the 129. Industrial, energy and manufacturing software leads, followed by the niche verticals and by travel and hospitality, with software for car rental firms, hotels, golf courses and venues, the remit of Aspire Software today. The niche verticals include software for car dealerships and auto parts distributors, aviation, marinas, libraries, alarm monitoring and labor unions. Cybersecurity and finance software appear once each.
Valsoft looks for mission-critical software with long-tenured customers. Its brochure says it bids most aggressively for companies whose customers stay for years, even where growth is modest, and it considers carve-outs from larger groups. Aspire’s criteria read the same way: long-tenured customers, even where growth is modest. Valsoft’s 2023 review counted eight verticals new to the portfolio that year, so a business in a niche Valsoft has yet to enter is within its remit.
Where Valsoft Buys
Valsoft buys worldwide. By country, the United States leads with 53, followed by Canada with 19, the UK with 18, Australia with six, and Germany, the Netherlands and Spain with five each. By region, North America accounts for 72 of the 129, Europe for 50, Asia-Pacific for six and Latin America for one, across 15 countries.
Europe became a large share of the deal flow after Valsoft’s first European acquisitions in 2018: 36 of the 61 deals of 2021 to 2023 were in Europe. North America took the lead again in 2024 and 2025, with 29 of 40. Aspire Software lists North America, Europe and Australia as the regions it buys in, and Valsoft’s first Latin American deal, in Brazil, came in 2025.
What Valsoft Pays: Acquisition Multiples
Valsoft’s price range is on the record: The Globe and Mail reported in January 2024 that it pays about one to two times sales, and the paper repeated the range in December 2024 for companies below US$10M of revenue. It values a business for long ownership, and its brochure describes an indefinite hold. That stated range is the firmest pricing evidence on this page, because the deals we can price ourselves are few.
Disclosed prices are scarce, so we gathered every one we could match to the target’s revenue: the deals with a reported multiple, plus prices and financials published by a listed seller, a listed target and UK company registries. That gives five acquisitions with an EV/Revenue multiple, at a median of 1.1x revenue, and three with an EBITDA multiple, from 4.9x to 16.7x. Five and three are small samples, and they sit inside the one to two times sales that Valsoft itself describes. Across the private software deals in our valuation research the medians are 3.7x revenue and 19.0x EBITDA.
The five split by type: one was the takeover of a listed company and one a business line carved out of a listed group, and those two changed hands at 1.5x to 1.7x revenue. The three private companies in the set, all in the UK, sold for 0.9x to 1.1x revenue. The EBITDA multiples cover three of the five deals, so the two medians come from different samples and divide into different prices.
As arithmetic, 1.1x revenue equals 5.5x EBITDA at a 20 percent margin and 3.7x at 30 percent, so one revenue multiple hides very different prices for cash flow. Valsoft’s own margins give a sense of that arithmetic: the Globe reported operating profit of about 25 to 30 percent of its revenue in early 2024, and a purchase at one times revenue of a business with similar margins pays back in about four years from its own operating profit.
The Globe reported in December 2024 that competition for deals was rising as private equity firms put capital to work. A sale to Valsoft brings a cash buyer and a long-term home, with the headline multiple at the low end of the software market.
Have an offer from Valsoft?
If you have an offer from Valsoft or one of its groups on your desk, talk to us before you answer it. Valsoft is a great buyer: fast, decisive, paying in cash and ready to buy whenever you decide to sell. It also pays at the low end of the market, a median 1.1x revenue on the deals we can price, against 3.7x across private software deals. Our job is to find the buyers who pay more, a strategic acquirer or a private equity platform that values your business for what it can become, and to put their bids next to Valsoft’s. Call us before you sign a letter of intent.
How Valsoft Structures a Deal
Valsoft publishes its process in four steps: an introductory call; a first data request and an indication of interest; a second data request and a letter of intent; then due diligence of 30 to 60 days, the purchase agreement and closing. It says it sends a letter of intent with a valuation within a week, closes within 45 days of the letter and closes on more than 95 percent of the letters it signs. It runs legal and accounting in-house, and its general counsel told Canadian Lawyer that half of his legal team works on M&A.
Payment is cash at closing: the brochure promises cash at close free of post-closing contingencies, Aspire says it pays all cash from its own balance sheet, and a January 2024 podcast episode on Valsoft reported that it had paid founders 100 percent of their proceeds in cash on every acquisition to that date. Small deferred amounts appear: on the three deals where a seller or Valsoft’s UK accounts split the price, between 6 and 13 percent was deferred, and where the timing was stated, the deferred part fell due after about a year.
Valsoft buys all or most of a company. Its brochure says 100 percent or majority acquisitions, and the 56 deals that state a stake were all for 100 percent. Majority purchases do happen: in 2023 Valsoft bought a majority stake in Klopotek, a German provider of publishing software. Some deals are asset purchases, including carve-outs from larger groups, where the buyer takes the business and leaves the company behind.
A deal free of earn-outs puts the weight on the fixed terms: the size of any deferred amount, what it can be set against and when it is released, and the warranties behind them, belong in the negotiation alongside the headline price. A private equity platform can offer a different trade, part of the equity rolled into the platform and sold again at its exit, as our guide to selling your business to a software roll-up describes.
What Happens After Closing
Valsoft describes acquired businesses as keeping their leadership and market focus and gaining capital, operational support and shared technology. Aspire says every company continues to run in its existing office, in a decentralized structure, and that it focuses on the big picture and leaves day-to-day decisions with the business. The brochure lists quarterly meetings of portfolio managers to share practices, access to a central marketing team, and in-house M&A support for add-on deals, cross-selling and international expansion.
The shared resources are growing: Valsoft runs an AI Labs unit under a Chief AI Officer and says it builds AI platforms in-house and shares the infrastructure across its companies, and The Globe reported in December 2024 that Valpay, its payments unit, served 10 to 15 portfolio companies.
Leadership after a sale varies from deal to deal. When Valsoft bought Thermeon, a UK provider of car rental software, in 2018, its whole management team stayed; when it bought Klopotek in 2023, the founder stepped down and a new chief executive took over. Aspire describes its role as ensuring a smooth leadership transition, and the terms of the handover are part of the negotiation.
What Valsoft holds, it holds for the long term, with exceptions. Its brochure describes an indefinite hold and a permanent home, and Aspire calls itself permanent equity. The Globe reported in December 2024 that Valsoft had divested two companies. Firmament, a private equity firm, took a majority of Navitrans, the Belgian logistics software business Valsoft bought in 2020, in January 2024, with Valsoft keeping a minority, and Komexo, a Dutch business bought in 2022, passed to Smart Manufacturing Group in October 2024. Two exits against 129 acquisitions is a small share, and both are worth asking about before you sign.
Valsoft and the Constellation Model
Valsoft is explicitly modeled on Constellation Software, according to The Globe and Mail, and our profile of Constellation describes the market Constellation created. Valsoft ranks among the ten most active buyers in our ranking of software acquirers, and half of its 129 acquisitions since 2015, 65, came in 2023 to 2025.
The two differ in ways that matter to a seller. Constellation is listed and funds deals from its own cash flow; Valsoft is private, founder-led and funded by growth investors as well as its own earnings, and Youssef has said he hopes to list it once revenue reaches US$1bn. Valsoft publishes its process and timing, and its price range is in the press. For an owner, that openness makes Valsoft’s offer easy to read and easy to test against a second bid.
Is This a Good Time to Sell to Valsoft?
Valsoft is buying at pace: it raised US$320M across two rounds in 2024, and the seven groups formed in October 2025 each run their own deal flow, so the number of teams able to make an offer has grown.
The wider software market repriced in early 2026, as AI coding agents cast doubt on parts of a sector that, in our view, was already carrying excessive valuations. In our March 2026 webinar on SaaS valuations we noted that the businesses holding up best were smaller, vertically focused and serving mission-critical workflows, and that more buyers now ask how a business is addressing AI disruption risk, with deals disqualified on that question alone. Valsoft now runs AI centrally across its companies through its AI Labs unit, so prepare to explain how your product uses AI.
The case for selling is strongest for a founder with most of their wealth in one software business, who carries that risk alone; an owner of more than 150 businesses prices each one on its own forecast and spreads the outcome across all of them. If your product is mission-critical in a niche, your customers stay for years and most of your revenue recurs, the demand is there now, and Valsoft is one of several buyers deploying capital into that profile. If your product is exposed to AI disruption, our webinar view stands: now is still a good time to sell, while valuations for software businesses remain sensible. For an owner whose business is growing and who can carry the risk, keeping the company is a good option too. The latest prices are in our software valuation multiples research.
Why You Need an M&A Advisor When Valsoft Approaches You
The buyer has made 129 software acquisitions since 2016 with a team of 60 dealmakers and its own lawyers and accountants; the owner across the table is selling one business.
Valsoft makes the route in easy: a letter of intent within a week, closing within 45 days, cash at closing and a published price range. Speed favors the side that has done it before. The strongest way to use an approach is as part of a process, since dealing with a single buyer alone, whether it called you or you called it, leaves you to judge its number unaided.
Establish what the business is worth before the first offer arrives, from comparable transactions and from how a buyer paying one to two times revenue will read your margin, your customer retention and your recurring revenue.
Bring in one or two other buyers, at least one with a different model: a strategic buyer in your vertical can pay for what your product adds to its own, and a private equity platform for what the business can become. The second bid tests the first, and together they give you a choice of owner for the years after closing.
Negotiate the terms as hard as the price: any deferred amount and how it is released, the warranties, and your role afterwards. A competing bid gives you room on all three. The figures on this page describe a market; your company will be priced in a negotiation.
That is the work we do for owners of software businesses while they keep running the company, and running it well through the process matters, because how the business performs ends up in the price. For how an approach fits into a wider sale, see how to sell a software company and strategic versus financial buyers.
About Aventis Advisors
Aventis Advisors is an M&A advisor for software and technology companies. 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. Our goal is to provide honest, insight-driven advice that lays out all the options clearly, including the option to keep the status quo.
Get in touch to discuss what your business could be worth and how the process works.
