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Between 60 and 70% of B2B SaaS acquisitions involve private equity. Most founders can't tell those firms apart, and Einar Vollset of Discretion Capital / @tinyseed.com says that's exactly the problem. His breakdown at MicroConf Europe. 🧵

Every PE website says the same thing: Build trust. Advance your journey. Realize potential. Behind that, three completely different strategies with enormous variance in what they'll pay: → Tuck-in buyers, high → Platform buyers, medium → Value buyers, low to very low

Tuck-ins fit you into a company they already own. Vollset has seen them outbid strategic acquirers on price alone. They're fast, they close, and about 60% of the deals his firm does are tuck-ins. Platform buyers can't overpay as they still have to resell you.

Then value buyers, running three strategies: Turnarounds — buy it broken, fix it, resell Cigar butts — cut hard, milk the cash flow, hold Steals — skip the fixing, just buy it cheap None of them will run your company the way you ran it.