Software and SaaS.Nothing else.
A generalist bank will take your mandate. What it will not have is a view on which three sponsors are live in your vertical this quarter, or why the last comparable asset cleared where it did. That is what a specialist desk is for.
Mandate range $50M – $500M enterprise value.
Eight sectors, priced differently for real reasons.
The gap between the top and bottom of this list is not arbitrary. It tracks how durable the revenue is and how many credible acquirers there are.
AI & ML Platforms
≈ 16x EBITDA at typical margins
Proprietary training data and model IP a buyer cannot rebuild. Products that wrap a public model are priced as ordinary software.
Strategic acquirers, growth equity
Cybersecurity
≈ 15x EBITDA at typical margins
Renewal rates above 95% and a compliance-driven purchase that survives budget cuts.
Platform strategics, sponsor-backed consolidators
Vertical B2B SaaS
≈ 13x EBITDA at typical margins
Category leadership in a defensible niche, embedded workflow, and pricing power on renewal.
Private equity, vertical consolidators
FinTech Infrastructure
≈ 12x EBITDA at typical margins
Regulatory licences, direct rails, and transaction volume that compounds without new sales.
Payments strategics, financial sponsors
Healthcare Technology
≈ 12x EBITDA at typical margins
Payer or provider contracts with multi-year terms, and clinical data that is hard to reassemble.
Healthcare strategics, specialist sponsors
HR & Workforce Tech
≈ 11x EBITDA at typical margins
Enterprise logos with low seat churn, and integration depth into payroll or HRIS systems.
HCM platforms, private equity
Enterprise Software
≈ 10x EBITDA at typical margins
Maintenance revenue that renews without effort, and a migration cost that keeps customers in place.
Private equity, legacy consolidators
EdTech
≈ 9x EBITDA at typical margins
Institutional contracts rather than consumer subscriptions, and enrolment that does not reset each year.
Education strategics, family offices
Divestitures.com analysis of publicly reported transactions. Illustrative benchmarks for middle-market assets with disclosed terms. not a valuation. Full methodology.
Sectors we run, without publishing a benchmark.
Deal flow in these is thinner and there are fewer disclosed comparables, so a published multiple would suggest more precision than the data supports.
PropTech
Commercial real estate management, property analytics, transaction platforms
Logistics technology
Supply chain, warehouse automation, transport management systems
MarTech & AdTech
Customer data platforms, marketing automation, analytics
LegalTech
Practice management, contract lifecycle, e-discovery
Climate & ESG software
Energy management, carbon accounting, sustainability reporting
Six kinds of buyer, and what each is really paying for.
Strategic platform acquirer
Highest headline multiple
Product or customer adjacency they can cross-sell into an existing base on day one. They underwrite your revenue plus their own distribution, which is how they outbid a financial buyer.
Sponsor-backed consolidator
Competitive, and fast
A platform they can bolt onto an existing portfolio company, or an asset that becomes a platform itself. Recurring revenue and a repeatable sales motion matter more than growth rate.
Growth equity
Premium for growth, discount for anything else
Efficient growth with a large remaining market. Often prefers a majority recap that keeps management in place rather than a clean exit.
Large-cap private equity
Disciplined, structured
Scale, defensibility, and a management team that can operate independently from close. Carve-outs appeal to them because they are complex, and complexity keeps competition away.
Family office & permanent capital
Moderate, but certain
Durable cash generation they can hold indefinitely. With no exit clock there is no pressure to grow into a five-year plan.
International strategic
Often the highest, for market access
A foothold in a market they cannot enter organically at sensible cost. Your customer base is the asset, and your product may be secondary.
What we say no to, and why.
Referring a mandate to the right adviser costs us a fee and saves you a wasted year. On success-based terms those incentives point the same way.
- Consumer applications
- Advertising-funded consumer products, where the buyer set and the valuation logic are entirely different
- Hardware-led businesses
- Unless software and recurring revenue carry the majority of enterprise value
- Pre-revenue technology
- Venture assets are priced on narrative; that is a different discipline and a different desk
- Distressed sales
- Restructuring processes need a restructuring adviser, not a sell-side M&A desk
Assets below $50M are referred to FIH's core advisory desk, which runs the same process at smaller scale on the same success-based terms.
Every mandate startswith one conversation.
Tell us what you are considering. A senior advisor from FIH will come back with a straight read on value, timing and who would actually buy it, before you commit to anything.
- Confidential. Nothing you share leaves the advisory team.
- Success-based. No retainer, no upfront fees, no obligation.
- A senior FIH advisor responds within one business day.