Skaalerud: Micro-SaaS due diligence replaces manual data rooms with direct software access
Kjael Skaalerud · Startup Acquisition Stories with Kjael Skaalerud, President of Skaling Ventures · Jun 27, 2023 · at 14:14
Kjael Skaalerud, President of Skaling Ventures, discusses how modern SaaS acquisition diligence contrasts with traditional private equity data rooms.
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“So if you think about traditional OG private equity and it's like, hey, we have a data room and this data room is stuffed full of like spreadsheets that have P and L's and, you know, customer concentration and personnel and salespeople and quotas and headcount and HR and benefits and overhead and all this stuff. It's like, oh my God. When in reality, that stuff is all a byproduct of the systems of record. And if you think, and this is for anybody that plays the vertical SAS game or period, the SAS game, right? Like the three pillars of SAS usually are you got to manage your books, which is accounting ERP. If you're more, I guess, kind of large, you got to manage your books, which is CRM. I'm sorry, customers, which is like CRM, Stripe, you know, stuff like that. Like how is revenue coming in? What are your customers look like? And then lastly is HR tech or how you manage your employees. You got your books, your customers and your employees. Those systems of records are usually a CRM, HR suite and accounting thing. And so any of the stuff that exists in a data room is usually exported from those tools. And what's beautiful about micro and I guess, you know, marketplaces like acquire is that you can kind of get direct access into those systems of records.”
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