A transaction-led guide to why US buyers acquire European software companies, what recent deals reveal about buyer rationale, and how European tech founders should prepare for a cross-border sale.
US buyers have long been active in European software. Recent transactions illustrate a range of acquisition rationales, from product and capability expansion to European market access, regulatory infrastructure and scaled recurring-revenue platforms. Understanding those rationales is important when defining the buyer universe and positioning a company for sale.
We reviewed recent transactions involving European-origin software, SaaS, AI and technology businesses acquired by US strategic buyers and private equity sponsors. The deals range from founder-led infrastructure software to public-company take-privates and AI capability acquisitions. They show that geography alone does not create value. Product fit, category leadership, market access, regulatory permissions and the ability to accelerate a buyer’s strategy do.
This article is written for founders of European B2B software, SaaS, AI and technology companies, particularly in the mid-market. It combines recent transaction evidence with the practical issues that matter when a US buyer is part of the buyer universe: positioning, structure, diligence and process execution.
Key Takeaways
What recent Europe-to-US software deals tell us about buyer rationale
The table below focuses on transactions announced in 2025 and 2026. It is not intended as a valuation benchmark. Instead, its purpose is to show the range of assets US buyers have acquired in Europe and the strategic logic stated by the buyers or sellers.
Methodology
L40° reviewed recent Europe-to-US M&A and sponsor transactions involving European-founded software, SaaS, AI and technology companies and US-headquartered strategic buyers and private equity firms. The dataset focuses primarily on transactions announced in 2025 and 2026, with selected 2024 deals included for context. Deal values are classified as disclosed, reported or undisclosed, and strategic rationale is based on statements from the buyer, target, seller or sponsor, supplemented by credible transaction reporting where necessary. Revenue and ARR multiples are used only where both consideration and the underlying financial metric can be supported by public sources. Hugging Face is included as a French-founded / European-origin company despite being incorporated and headquartered in the US.
Downloadable data archive (csv).
Five recent transactions worth understanding
1. Thoma Bravo / Kneat Solutions: a transparent software valuation case
In June 2026, Thoma Bravo agreed to acquire Ireland-based Kneat Solutions for approximately C$650 million. Kneat reported FY2025 revenue of C$63.3 million and ARR of C$74.1 million.
On those public figures, the headline transaction value equates to roughly 10.3x revenue or 8.8x ARR. The important caveat is that the consideration is an equity-value figure and the company’s net cash position was not verified in our review, so it should not be presented as a clean EV/revenue comp.
The strategic logic, on the other hand, is clearer: Kneat sits in mission-critical validation and compliance workflows for life sciences, an area where regulatory complexity increases the value of trusted, embedded software. Founder, do not take away that a “European SaaS is worth 9x ARR.” Focus on how that category position, recurring revenue quality and workflow criticality can support strong buyer conviction when the asset is strategically coherent.
2. Francisco Partners / EfficientIP: founder liquidity in mid-market infrastructure software
Francisco Partners acquired Paris-based EfficientIP in June 2026 from its founders, minority investors and management. The price was not disclosed.
EfficientIP provides DNS, DHCP and IP address-management software and serves more than 1,500 customers. This is one of the closest recent examples to the type of founder-led European software business that often considers a structured cross-border sale.
Francisco Partners highlighted EfficientIP’s mission-critical technology, customer validation and growth, while management framed the partnership around accelerating innovation and expanding global reach. The transaction illustrates a common private-equity thesis: acquire a durable software platform in a specialised infrastructure category and use sponsor resources to scale it further.
3. Salesforce / Contentful: product adjacency, not geography
Salesforce agreed to acquire Berlin-founded Contentful in June 2026. The parties did not disclose consideration. Approximately $1 billion has been reported in secondary coverage and should be labelled as reported rather than confirmed.
Salesforce’s stated rationale was product integration: combining customer data, AI-driven content and digital experience within its broader platform, including Agentforce. Contentful added a product capability that Salesforce could integrate directly into its existing stack, making the strategic fit more specific than a general geographic expansion thesis.
In transactions like this, positioning the company against a buyer’s product roadmap can be more compelling than relying simply on a broad cross-border growth narrative.
4. Mastercard / BVNK: capability acquisition and contingent consideration
Mastercard announced the acquisition of London-based BVNK for up to $1.8 billion, including $300 million of contingent consideration.
BVNK provides stablecoin and on-chain payments infrastructure. Mastercard positioned the deal around adding on-chain rails, programmability and the ability for financial institutions to offer stablecoin and tokenised-deposit services within a larger payments network.
The transaction also shows why founders should look beyond headline value. A portion of the announced consideration is contingent, so the amount paid at close is lower than the headline number. When comparing offers, cash at close, earnouts, rollover and other conditions can matter as much as the stated enterprise or equity value.
5. Ramp / Billhop: when licences and market access are part of the asset
Ramp’s 2026 acquisition of Stockholm-based Billhop is a particularly useful cross-border example. The price was not disclosed.
The stated commercial objective was to make Ramp directly available to companies headquartered in the UK and EU, with Billhop’s payment-institution licences and EEA passporting rights providing the operating route. This pattern appears in other regulated transactions in the dataset as well.
In financial infrastructure and other regulated categories, a buyer may be acquiring not only software and customers, but also permissions, local compliance infrastructure and time-to-market. Those assets can materially change the strategic value of a European target to a US buyer.
What US buyers are actually acquiring in Europe
The recent transactions do not point to a single “US buyer playbook.” They point to several recurring acquisition rationales.
1. Product and capability. Salesforce / Contentful, CrowdStrike / Onum, Workday / Sana and AMD / Silo AI are examples of buyers adding a product layer, technical capability or specialised team that accelerates an existing roadmap.
2. Category leadership and recurring-revenue platforms. Kneat, EfficientIP, Hornetsecurity and other scaled vertical or infrastructure platforms show the attraction of embedded products with strong customer validation, recurring revenue and mission-critical use cases.
3. European market entry and operating reach. Ramp / Billhop and Netradyne / Moove show a different thesis: acquiring an operating base, customer access or local infrastructure that can accelerate entry into European markets.
4. Regulatory permissions and compliance infrastructure. In regulated sectors, licences and compliance capabilities can be part of the asset itself. Billhop, Acolin and other payments or financial-infrastructure transactions illustrate why a buyer may value a target partly for the route it provides into a regulated market.
5. Private-equity platform building. Francisco Partners / EfficientIP, Bain / Namirial and Thoma Bravo / Kneat illustrate sponsor interest in specialised European software businesses that can become larger platforms, support add-on M&A or compound growth under private ownership.
Do US buyers pay more for European software companies?
There is no reliable basis for a blanket “US premium.” In our transaction review, only a minority of deals disclosed a transaction value, and only a handful disclosed enough financial information to calculate a revenue or ARR multiple that survives basic scrutiny. Kneat and Hornetsecurity are the clearest recurring-revenue software examples, at roughly 8.8x and 9.0x ARR respectively, but two transactions are not a market benchmark.
This disclosure gap is especially relevant to founder-led mid-market software. The $5 million to $100 million ARR segment is systematically under-reported in public sources, so isolated headline deals can create false precision. A founder should not anchor valuation expectations to a small number of public transactions without adjusting for growth, retention, margin, category, concentration, profitability, strategic fit and deal structure.
A US buyer can still be the strongest bidder when the strategic or portfolio fit is unusually strong. The important lever is not nationality; it is having enough qualified buyers in the process to drive competition and knowing which buyers can justify the asset internally.
What a US buyer will underwrite
A US buyer does not use a different definition of a good software company because the target is European or because it seeks a strategic rationale behind that acquisition target. It still underwrites revenue quality, retention, gross margin, growth, profitability, customer concentration, product defensibility and management depth.
Cross-border context adds a few questions that can become more important depending on the buyer, such as:
- US or international traction: existing US customers can reduce market-entry risk, but a US footprint is not a prerequisite for a sale.
- IP ownership: the buyer needs a clean chain of title across employees, contractors, founders and jurisdictions.
- Data and GDPR: data-processing, transfer and privacy practices should be documented and current.
- Financial reporting: IFRS is not a problem, but a buyer should be able to reconcile the company’s reporting quickly into its own diligence and reporting framework.
- Regulatory permissions: in payments, financial infrastructure, healthcare and other regulated categories, licences and compliance infrastructure may be part of the strategic thesis itself.
Structure and terms in a Europe-to-US deal
Cash, earnouts, rollover equity, escrows and holdbacks are not uniquely American structures. They are tools used to allocate risk, bridge valuation gaps and keep management aligned. What changes in a cross-border transaction is the number of jurisdictions and the practical complexity around them.
The BVNK transaction is a useful reminder that headline consideration is not always the same as cash at close. Mastercard’s announced value of up to $1.8 billion includes $300 million of contingent consideration. Two offers with the same headline value can therefore produce very different outcomes for a founder depending on timing, conditions and risk allocation.
- FX exposure between signing and closing.
- Tax and entity structuring across jurisdictions.
- Treatment and transfer of IP held in different entities.
- Accounting and reporting reconciliation for the buyer.
- Management retention, rollover or earnout obligations after close.
How to position a European software company for US buyers
The objective is not to make the company look more “American.” It is to make the acquisition logic obvious to each qualified buyer. A European company can be strategically valuable because it owns a product, category position, customer base, licence, team or operating capability that would take the buyer years to build internally.
- Map buyer-specific rationale before outreach. The strategic case for a Salesforce, a PE sponsor and a US software platform will not be the same.
- Prepare evidence around recurring revenue quality, retention, margin, customer concentration and growth before the process begins.
- Clean up IP, contractor assignments, data documentation and financial reconciliations before they become diligence issues.
- Do not negotiate against one inbound approach if a broader qualified buyer universe exists. Cross-border competition is most useful when it creates alternatives.
- Model the economic outcome of each structure, not just the headline price. Cash at close, rollover, earnout and tax treatment all matter.
That said, do not narrow the buyer universe to US acquirers in pursuit of a perceived “US premium.” European and other international buyers may have equally strong strategic rationale and should remain part of a competitive process.
Running the process from Europe
A Europe-to-US process adds an additional layer of coordination and of knowing the buyer universe there, not a fundamentally different M&A process. Management presentations may cross time zones; legal and tax work may require advisers in more than one jurisdiction; and buyer diligence may need a clearer bridge between European reporting, employment, IP and privacy frameworks and the buyer’s own requirements.
The ultimate practical advantage of including US buyers is buyer depth. The risk, however, is assuming that an international name automatically means a better outcome.
A well-run process qualifies buyers by strategic fit and ability to execute, maintains competition through diligence and compares offers on both value and structure.
What this means for founders
Recent Europe-to-US transactions show a broad range of buyer rationales: product adjacency, AI capability, category leadership, market entry, regulatory permissions and sponsor-backed platform building. The common thread is not geography. It is that the target solves a specific strategic problem for the buyer.
For a founder considering liquidity, the work is therefore twofold: build a company that can withstand diligence, and understand which buyers can place the highest strategic value on what the company has already built. The right US buyer may be part of that universe, but it should be tested competitively alongside qualified European and global alternatives.
If you are a founder, CEO or investor considering a sale of a European software, SaaS or AI company, L40° can help assess the buyer universe, positioning and timing for a cross-border process.
Talk to our team about your options.
Research note
L40° reviewed 25 publication-ready transactions after removing lower-fit crypto, licensing-entity and training examples from the research universe. The article table focuses on 2025-2026 announcements; selected 2024 transactions such as Thoma Bravo / Darktrace, Visa / Featurespace and AMD / Silo AI remain useful historical context. Transaction values are labelled as disclosed, reported or undisclosed. Revenue multiples are not presented as a market benchmark because public disclosure is sparse and value definitions are not always comparable.
Recommended Reads
- The Biggest Tech M&A Deals of 2025
- The Truth About 10x Revenue Multiples in Tech M&A
- Middle-Market M&A Firms: How to Choose the Right Sell-Side Advisor
- How to Sell a LatAm SaaS or AI Company to US and European Buyers
- Sell-Side M&A: An In-Depth Guide for Tech & SaaS Founders
