The market is busy. Most of it goes unseen.
Twelve months of SaaS transactions, more than half of them vertical software, and a benchmark that measures how much of its own market a buyer actually sees. The answer for the median private equity firm is fewer than one deal in five.
See the coverage benchmarkTwelve months of transactions, and the share any one buyer sees.
Twelve months through the second quarter of 2026, as counted by Software Equity Group.
Of SaaS M&A transactions in the second quarter of 2026. Software built for one industry is the larger half of the market.
The share of relevant, intermediated, closed deals the median private equity firm saw, across 177 firms, twelve months to June 30, 2025.
The median for firms buying at $10 million to $49 million of enterprise value. The smaller the deal, the less of the market any one buyer sees.
The median number of advisors a firm counted as a source of deals. Coverage is a function of who sends you what.
Of the deals in a lower-market firm’s pipeline, the median share that closed with that firm. Seeing a deal is not the same as winning it.
The median private equity firm sees fewer than one deal in five of the ones available inside its own stated market.
Where would your firm land?
Open the deal coverage calculatorHow this was measured: the study took 177 private equity firms. For each one, it listed the deals completed in the industries and sizes that firm says it targets, each with a private equity buyer and a sell-side advisor, and counted how many of those the firm saw. SPS / With Intelligence, Deal Origination Benchmark Report, twelve months to June 30, 2025.
No buyer sees most of its market. The question is who decides which part you see.
What coverage measures
The benchmark takes a private equity firm’s own stated criteria, lists every closed transaction in those industries and sizes that had a private equity buyer and a sell-side advisor, and counts how many of them the firm saw. It is a measure of the market the firm says it wants, not of the whole market. A firm that saw 18.4 percent of its own stated market did not see the other 81.6 percent, and the sell-side advisors who ran those processes decided who did.
The figure falls as deals get smaller. Firms buying at $10 million to $49 million of enterprise value saw a median of 9.0 percent. In the lower middle market the sell side is more fragmented, the processes are narrower, and a buyer’s coverage depends on relationships with a longer list of smaller advisors. The median firm counted 199 of them as sources.
Why vertical software is harder to cover
Vertical software is sold by sector. The buyer of a dental practice management company is rarely the buyer of a freight audit platform, and the advisor who knows one sector rarely knows the other. A buyer with criteria across ten industries is trying to be known in ten separate markets at once, each with its own owners, its own acquirers and its own reasons a deal breaks. The share of SaaS transactions that are vertical software passed half in 2026, so the harder half of the market is now the larger half.
What raises coverage
Three things, in order. Criteria on file with the people who map a sector before anyone goes to market, so that a fit is recognized when it appears. Owner relationships built ahead of a process, so that a buyer is already known when the owner decides. And the evidence on a company assembled before a letter of intent, so that the time a buyer spends under exclusivity is spent on a deal that can close. Capital Row keeps a buyer’s criteria on file and confirms them each quarter. A dedicated search in one sector is by exception.
- Software Equity Group, 2Q26 SaaS M&A and Public Market Report, transactions and vertical share
- SPS by With Intelligence, Deal Origination Benchmark Report, LTM to June 30, 2025, 177 private equity firms, coverage, advisors per firm and percent transacted
Put your criteria on file.
See the rest of your market.
Capital Row helps buyers see more of their own market, with the financials traced to source before the letter of intent.
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