Kautilya PE · Buy-side acquisition · Confidential
From 1,600 DMsto one deal.No broker.No marketplace.
A full buy-side mandate on a Twitter/X automation SaaS. More than 1,700 founders contacted off-market, three layers of diligence, and a $25,000 acquisition with $17,500 at close and 30% deferred against performance.
- Asset
- Withheld at the parties' request
- Scope
- Full mandate, sourcing to close
- Deal size
- $25,000
- Timeline
- ~12 weeks · 2026
- Revenue in the final month before acquisition
- $2,156
- Revenue growth in 9 months, no paid marketing
- 6.2×
- MRR multiple at the final price
- 14×
- Off-market: no broker, no listing
- 100%
The situation
Two first-time buyers, a clear mandate, and no machine to run it
The buyers were two first-time acquirers. They knew what they wanted: a small, founder-led SaaS with real organic growth, bought directly from the person who built it.
What they did not have was prior acquisition experience, a sourcing pipeline or a transaction framework. They needed someone to build the pipeline, run the diligence, negotiate the terms and close the deal.
What the buyers needed answered
- 01Where are the off-market, founder-led deals in X-native SaaS, and how do we reach them first?
- 02Is this revenue durable traction or a fragile early signal?
- 03How founder-dependent is the product, and can operations transfer without the founder?
- 04What are the real unit economics at the customer, cost and churn level?
- 05How do we protect the downside without breaking the seller's alignment after close?
The asset
One P&L. One founder. One problem worth solving.
The product finds leads on X and sends AI-personalised outreach at scale, using each lead's profile and recent activity as context. Every customer came in through organic search; nothing was spent on marketing.
- Category
- X-native SaaS: outreach and sales automation
- Business model
- Monthly subscription, billed through Stripe
- Customers
- Founders, solopreneurs, SMM agencies, PR firms, finance professionals
- Operating history
- ~9 months at acquisition
- MRR at acquisition
- $1,771 from 9 paying subscribers
- Revenue trajectory
- $348 to $2,156 a month, zero paid marketing
- Gross margin
- ~70 to 80%+
- Team
- Founder only: no staff, no SOPs, no redundancy
Revenue verified at the source (Stripe) against the seller's P&L, with 100% reconciliation.
Sourcing
1,700 messages to find one business
Every message went out without naming the buyer, which kept their leverage intact from first contact to signed agreement.
Tap a stage for what happened there.
1 · Closed
Project Outbound, with a signed Asset Purchase Agreement.
The approach
Four workstreams, run in parallel
From mandate kick-off to APA signature.
- 01
Mandate formation
Buyer preferences turned into advance and reject thresholds, revenue minimums, founder-intent signals and deal size discipline before sourcing scaled.
- 02
Buyer-anonymous outreach
1,700+ messages across Reddit, TrustMRR, Twitter and email without disclosing who was buying. The weak channels were dropped by week 4.
- 03
Three-layer diligence
Financial: Stripe access, full P&L reconciliation, one-time revenue flagged. Technical: an independent review of ~98,000 lines of TypeScript. Customer: managed conversations with subscribers.
- 04
APA negotiation and close
LOI terms, three APA revision cycles, the earnout, equity exit and developer transition, and cross-border payment logistics for buyers with a US LLC still in formation.
What diligence revealed
Three findings that shaped how the buyers saw the deal
The growth is real, and unmarketed
What we found
Revenue went from $348 to $2,156 a month over 9 months without paid marketing. We verified it with direct Stripe access and reconciled it 100% against the seller's P&L. About $800 of lifetime-plan purchases were flagged as non-recurring, and the buyers proceeded with full visibility.
What it meant for the buyer
The buyers were underwriting a business that had already done the hardest part of early SaaS, building organic distribution, without spending anything on it. That is a very different risk than MRR bought with ads.
The structure
$17,500 at close, 30% deferred
Risk was priced through payment mechanics, not by cutting the headline number. The seller kept their $25,000 valuation; the buyers kept their downside protected.
$25,000 total consideration
Tap a slice for its terms.
The result
A buyer who could finally underwrite the right number
For the first time the buyers could see the business the way an operator does: by revenue layer, cost structure and customer behaviour. The 14× multiple broke down into its parts: an organically growing SaaS with real technical defensibility, founder dependence handled through structure, and platform risk explicitly underwritten.
"Is this founder-dependent?" now had an evidence-backed answer: yes, and it's been handled. A seller note that creates payment urgency, an equity stake that keeps the founder a stakeholder, and a capped three-month developer handover.
- Cash at close
- 70%
- Deals shortlisted and presented
- 21
- APA revision cycles
- 3
Outcome
The buyers went into the handover with a risk-adjusted view of a growing off-market SaaS and a structure that kept both sides aligned through close and beyond, built on numbers that traced all the way back to the source.
Deliverables
What the buyers received
Sourcing campaign
1,700+ buyer-anonymous messages; 21 mandate-aligned deals shortlisted with investment memos.
LOI
Drafted, negotiated across four seller feedback points, and signed by both parties.
Financial diligence
Stripe reconciled against the seller's P&L; revenue quality, cost structure, one-time revenue flagged.
Technical diligence
Independent codebase review: architecture, dependency risk, and a 5 to 7 month rebuild estimate.
Customer diligence
Managed subscriber conversations that validated the product, surfaced churn drivers and tested transition risk.
APA and deal structure
Three revision cycles covering consideration, earnout, equity exit formula, developer transition, non-compete and payment logistics.
The team on this engagement
Dev
Founder
Mandate formation, deal negotiation and APA close.
Aum
Senior analyst
Financial reconciliation, LOI drafting, APA management, customer diligence and buyer alignment.
Pushkar
Analyst
Deal sourcing, seller outreach, customer database analysis, Stripe review and APA drafting.
From a client
What the buyer said
From one of the buyers behind Project Outbound. Verbatim except for the business's name, which is withheld. Pick a theme to see where it comes up.
We had a great experience working with the team, particularly Pushkar and Aum, who helped us source and successfully acquire [the business].
From the beginning, they took the time to understand our requirements and the type of business we were looking to acquire. They were very cooperative throughout the process, brought us relevant opportunities, and supported their recommendations with financial models and analysis that helped us evaluate each deal and make a sound decision.
They were also actively involved during calls with business owners, helping us ask the right questions and better understand the opportunities before moving forward.
What we appreciated most was that their support did not end once the [business] acquisition was completed. Pushkar and Aum continued to assist us during the transition period and were always available whenever we needed their support.
Overall, it was a very positive experience working with them, and I would definitely recommend their services to anyone looking to source, evaluate, and acquire a business.
Client
Project Outbound · 2026
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