Vela Software is the Constellation group that buys most outside Europe and the United States. Of its 157 acquisitions from 2015 to 2025, 77 were elsewhere, from Australia and Brazil to Chile and India, and since 2021 that has been the majority: 61 of 116. Within Constellation Software, the Toronto owner of more than 1,100 vertical software businesses, Vela made 27 of the family’s 55 acquisitions in Latin America. It prices like the rest of Constellation, a median of 1.0x revenue on 22 priced deals across the groups, buys the whole company and pays cash at closing from its own money.
Vela buys through nine portfolios, each with its own remit, criteria and team. FOG Software Group buys software for retail, apparel, automotive and the construction trades, Aquila buys banking and lending software, Juniper Group buys travel technology, and Vela APX and Vela LATAM buy across sectors in Australasia and Latin America. Each portfolio runs its own process, so this page starts there.
The counts cover the software acquisitions Vela announced from 2015 to 2025 and since completed, as held in our deal database, which draws on Mergermarket and on the announcements of Vela and its portfolios. Criteria and process come from the portfolios’ own websites, and every deal named here is checked against the buyer’s announcement.
In our view Vela is one of the more attractive permanent owners a vertical software founder can meet: fast, paying cash at closing, and committed to holding what it buys.
Vela Software Portfolios and Operating Companies
Vela is one of Constellation’s nine operating groups, described in the operating groups section of our Constellation Software profile. It runs from Toronto under Damian McKay, who came into Constellation as chief executive of Datamine, the mining software company Constellation bought in 2015, and who took over Vela in 2020. Vela’s website lists nine portfolios, and each portfolio’s own site says what it buys:
| Portfolio | What it buys |
|---|---|
| ARA Software Group | Mining and environmental data software, through acQuire; based in Perth, Australia |
| Aquila | Banking, lending and insurance software, with further purchases in media and education |
| Carina | Energy-sector software; a buy-and-hold-forever owner based in Toronto |
| FOG Software Group | Software for retail, textiles and apparel, automotive, construction and trades, and consumer insights |
| Juniper Group | Travel and hospitality software, plus smart manufacturing and smart software verticals and a group of Croatian companies |
| Libra Software Group | Supply chain, logistics and manufacturing software |
| Vela APX | Vertical software in Australia and New Zealand, from wholesale and agribusiness to retail and government; based in Queensland |
| Vela Industries Group | Software for natural resources, telematics, sustainability and business process optimization |
| Vela LATAM | Vertical software in Latin America, with Brazil and Argentina named on its site |
FOG is the most active portfolio, with 27 purchases announced under its own name, then Aquila with 18, Juniper with 16 and Vela APX with 12; about half of Vela’s deals were announced by Vela itself or by one of its companies.
The portfolios are reshuffled from time to time: four supply chain businesses FOG bought between 2020 and 2022 now sit in Libra, and energy companies Vela bought directly now sit in Carina. Vela APX took its present name in 2024. Ask in the first conversation which portfolio would own your company, which of its sister businesses you would sit beside and who would be your point of contact after closing.
The same remits exist in Vela’s sister groups. Of Constellation’s 69 industrial, energy and manufacturing software acquisitions, Vela made 30, and five other groups and Constellation’s smaller units made the other 39; six groups have bought financial services software. If you are unsure which group has approached you, several own businesses in the same verticals. Each has a page in this series: Volaris, TSS and Topicus, Harris, Jonas Software, Perseus, Lumine Group and Modaxo, and Andromeda is the ninth.
How Many Companies Vela Buys
Vela was a small buyer until 2018, with 19 purchases in four years. From 2022 to 2025 it bought 100, 25 a year, and 39 in 2022 alone.
Much of the growth carries a portfolio’s name: Juniper made all 16 of its purchases from 2021, and Aquila and Vela APX made 26 between them from 2022. Each portfolio searches its own sectors and regions, so the group’s reach widens with every portfolio that starts to buy.
What Size of Company Vela Buys
On size, Vela’s home page speaks about speed and certainty of close and leaves the question open, and two portfolios publish ranges. Vela Industries Group describes a target with net revenue of roughly $1M to $20M and above, growth of 10 to 35 percent a year, gross revenue attrition under 10 percent, more than half of revenue recurring, positive or near-term positive cash flow, at least 20 customers with low concentration and seven years or more in business. Libra looks for business-to-business software with mostly subscription or maintenance revenue and low churn, focused on North America and Europe, and treats profit and high growth as optional.
The two screens differ: Vela Industries Group looks for growth and recurring revenue, while Libra will look at a company with flat sales or thin margins if its customers stay. A founder with $3M of maintenance revenue and modest growth fits Libra’s description; one with $10M growing at 20 percent fits both. For the sizes Constellation buys across all its groups, see what size of company Constellation buys on our Constellation Software profile.
What Vela Buys
The largest vertical, industrial, energy and manufacturing software, holds 30 of the 157 deals, 19 percent. The table lists each vertical with at least six deals, 129 of the 157. The other 28 are spread over developer tools, healthcare, sales and marketing, HR, education, government, data and analytics, collaboration and general business applications.
| Vertical | Acquisitions |
|---|---|
| Industrial, energy and manufacturing | 30 |
| Financial services and insurance | 17 |
| Supply chain, logistics and transport | 15 |
| Retail and e-commerce | 13 |
| Legal, compliance and regulatory | 12 |
| Finance, accounting and ERP | 10 |
| Travel and hospitality | 9 |
| Real estate and construction | 7 |
| Media and entertainment | 6 |
| Other industry-specific software | 10 |
The verticals map onto the portfolios more closely than the spread suggests. All 9 travel deals were Juniper’s, among them the German dynamic packaging business Peakwork in 2023. Aquila made 11 of the 17 financial services deals and in 2025 added Enterprise SpA, an Italian banking and payments software company. FOG made 8 of the 15 supply chain deals, among them Logility’s transportation rating suite in 2023. Industrial software is the widest category, drawn from three directions: mining from Datamine, energy from the businesses now in Carina, and manufacturing from FOG.
The portfolios also publish the kinds of deal they want. Vela Industries Group names proprietary business-to-business or government software that customers treat as mission-critical. Libra names founder exits, carve-outs, distressed companies and underused companies. FOG’s portfolio includes Synergex, a legacy application modernization business it bought in 2023, so an older product on a dated platform would join a group with a sister company that works on that problem.
Where Vela Buys
Vela has bought in 26 countries, more than any other Constellation group. It is the family’s main buyer in Australia, with 23 of Constellation’s 59 deals there, in Brazil with 16 of 31 and in Chile with 6 of 9, and the only group to have bought in Colombia, India and Vietnam.
The mix has moved south and east: about half of Vela’s 41 acquisitions before 2021 were in North America, and since then Australia alone accounts for 16 and Brazil for 14. In those two countries the next most active buyer inside the family is Jonas in Australia, with 18 deals, and Volaris in Brazil, with 12.
Different parts of the group lead in each market. Aquila entered Latin American financial software in 2022 with Neosoft, a Chilean provider of regulatory reporting software for banks, and Vela kept buying in Chile with the asset management software providers Samtech in 2024 and Redd in 2025. In New Zealand, Vela Asia Pacific, now Vela APX, bought the accounting software company Accredo in 2022. Its one purchase in Vietnam was the distribution management software company DMSpro in 2023.
The pattern continued into 2026, outside the counts on this page. Vela LATAM bought Axoft, the Argentine developer of the Tango business software, in October 2026, its first purchase in Argentina, after Cobmais, a Brazilian credit recovery software company, in August.
What Vela Pays
Vela prices like the rest of Constellation, against a return set in advance and kept private, with head office approving the larger deals. Across Constellation, the median was 1.0x revenue on 22 priced deals, and the breakdown is in what Constellation pays on our Constellation Software profile. The Vela-specific point is the form of payment: FOG offers a simple structure with cash upfront, and Vela Industries Group says it pays from available cash, so the deal closes on the group’s own money.
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How Vela Structures a Deal
FOG publishes its process in seven steps: an initial meeting, a conversation with an operator, a mutual non-disclosure agreement, a discussion of fit, a letter of intent, due diligence and closing. It puts the time from letter of intent to closing at about four weeks. Vela Industries Group lists an initial meeting, a non-disclosure agreement, a letter of intent, an in-depth assessment and then an agreement and closing paid from available cash. Vela’s site lists speed and a high certainty of close among its advantages.
Four weeks from letter of intent to closing is fast, and it moves the negotiation forward: on that timetable the letter fixes the terms, so the room to change them comes before signature. For the funding, holdbacks and contingent payments Constellation reports across its groups, see how Constellation structures a deal on our Constellation Software profile.
Vela buys the whole company: in all 47 deals where the stake is known it bought 100 percent, and the other 110 were announced as purchases of the company with the stake left out. The one majority purchase we know of is recent: in 2026, Juniper Group bought a majority of DerbySoft, a travel technology company with offices in Dallas and Shanghai, and DerbySoft’s executives kept a minority under a shareholders’ agreement. Constellation also took a stake of about 12.7 percent in the listed travel technology company Sabre in 2026, and McKay joined Sabre’s board. Both sit outside every count on this page.
Carve-outs are part of the mix: 12 of the 157 were purchases of a unit, a division, a business or a set of assets, from the ProArc document management division of Tieto in Norway in 2018 to Spatial Dimension, which acQuire bought from Trimble in 2023. FOG bought ProShip from the listed group Quadient in 2020 and ICS from Equiniti in 2022. If you are selling a unit, negotiate the transition services, the customer contracts that need consent and the holdback with the same care as the price.
A private equity platform pays part of the price in its own equity and sells again at its exit; our guide to selling your business to a software roll-up sets out that trade. Vela pays cash and keeps the company.
What Happens After Closing
Vela says it holds its companies forever, and its portfolios repeat the point: Carina calls itself a buy-and-hold-forever company, Aquila says it invests permanently, and FOG says it keeps what it buys and operates acquired businesses as they are. Vela’s team leaves day-to-day operations to the managers and supports them with capital, vertical software know-how and a community of peers, and managers are encouraged to grow organically and by acquisition.
The acquisitions show what that encouragement means. Acquired companies keep buying: Datamine bought Centric Mining Systems in 2021, Omnira, a Carina business, bought Adept Solutions, a hydrocarbon accounting software company, in 2025, and Libra bought Kato Integrations in Florida the same year. A manager who stays after the sale may end up running a small acquisition program inside Vela, with capital from the group. Vela LATAM’s release on Cobmais in August 2026 said the company would keep its operations, brand and leadership.
After closing, your numbers are read the Constellation way, on return on invested capital and organic growth. Ask the portfolio how it reviews its companies, how often and against which numbers.
Before you sign, use the second step in FOG’s process, a conversation with an operator, to ask the person who runs a comparable FOG business what changed after it was bought, and ask any portfolio to introduce two former owners, one who stayed and one who left.
Who Else Buys What Vela Buys
In our view Vela’s footprint is its distinction inside the family. TSS bought 151 of its 152 companies in Europe and Harris 100 of its 123 in North America, while Vela’s portfolios buy from Chile to Vietnam. That reach cuts both ways for a seller: Vela can buy in your market wherever it is, and it can buy in many others, so it has more alternatives to your company than a buyer confined to one region. Outside Constellation, permanent owners of vertical software such as Valsoft and Banyan appear in our ranking of software acquirers.
Is This a Good Time to Sell to Vela?
Vela keeps buying: it announced 23 acquisitions in 2024 and 19 in 2025. Its 2026 announcements so far run from Croatia and Germany for Juniper to Brazil and Argentina for Vela LATAM.
Durability is the question that sharpened in 2026, after AI coding agents unsettled software valuations early in the year. Vela Industries Group screens for gross revenue attrition under 10 percent and more than half of revenue recurring, and a buyer planning to hold your company for decades will ask whether an AI tool could push either number the wrong way over the next ten years. Small vertical products built into their customers’ daily work held their value best, as our March 2026 webinar on SaaS valuations found, so bring your retention history and your answer on AI to the first meeting; current prices are in our software valuation multiples research.
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