Who would you recommend as the best M&A firm to help sell a strong performing consumer SAAS travel business?

Since no one has actually answered your question, let me try and give you some specific guidance: The "fair" range would probably land between $5m-$15m pre-money. For the low-end ($5-6m) to be fair, you'd be in a tiny (measured by total addressable market) with slow growth on that $2m as measured by either Year-Over-Year or month-over-month, depending on the sales model. Add a million to two million to the total pre-money the higher the TAM with no obvious incumbent to beat. Add an additional million to four million for better growth and proven, scaleable low customer acquisition costs. So that's how you would scale up or down a generally reasonable valuation. I would answer your question with more specificity had you provided the important contextual details like industry, where the company is located, business model, but at the very high level abstract, this should be helpful to you. Happy to do a call and give you a much more narrow range based on understanding the details..

Im not sure if i understood your question, but here i go: There are a few metrics that can be used (typically thought at MBA programs) but obviously accessible to leveraged investors through advisors and or legal aids. These metrics give an idea on value based on marketable assets, capital investments, liquidity, etc. depending on the startup's nature. Aside from the above, an investor pretty much decides on the spot. My first startup was funder out a simple idea being pitched and funding got me through beta, at which point we saw it was not worth pursuing. My second startup I funded myself after selling a company and then a group of investors valued the startup based on users (freemium model) and potential market cap. - for a market cap number you have to be reasonable too. Just because the market is worth 100billion doesnt mean you can cap at that.- Depending on the amount you ask for and who you pitch to, an investor might want to do a combination of revenue, users, assets, patents, contracts, pre orders, etc... If you need help crafting a pitch or giving you feedback give me a call. Best of luck.

Hello, you have a very interesting product in an interesting and growing industry. Anything with automated HR solutions is probably a good venture right now. There is a client of ours actually, www.BetaBulls.com who has specialized in automated Human Resources software (SaaS) as a CTO for other companies. I have learned a lot from working with them and based on that experience and the few startups I have launched myself including an online job posting platform and a game, I would say that generally speaking a good time to go for outside investment is when you have a validated concept, all legal documents in place and any type of demand from either partners or clients. Think of it as a business loan - you should only get one when you don't really need it, but for strategic leveraging is better to leverage borrowed money than your own. An investor should be the same, you get an investor if you need to buy yourself more time to improve on your technology or for market reach such as production or marketing. Not to prove the concept. It sounds like you are already there, so my recommendation would be to proceed with caution not giving any major control in any one area of your company or product.

I know couple of businesses which could be of your interest to you. At the same time, since I have been 3-4 businesses simultaneously for quite sometime and also share similar vision like yours, Would you be interested in a short discussion? Fyi, I am also on the lookout of partners who can support hand in hand. Lets discuss...

Naturally 1001 variables play into this that I'm blind to but here are some assumption laced thinking points: You're profitable, upwards trending, business, in a very competitive vertical. Yes? You guaranteed have a Buyer, unless: 1. Your asking price is outrageous. Not likely as we've closed strategic sales that were 12x revenues. It doesn't get much more aggressive than that. 2. There aren't enough strategic or institutional buyers. Nope. The buyer market is wide with creative outreach. We've rarely tapped let's say 20% of our pool before successfully securing multiple qualified offers. (And we hold a 100% close rate). 3. You're so big ($1B+) that only a few have an opportunity to buy you AND they don't like you or your brand. Unlikely? More likely... 4. The outreach effort is nominal. Most brokers and M&A intermediaries boast a sub 40% closing ratio and far too many of them are "listing agents" -- whereby they list a property, announce it to a pool of buyers in their database and then "wait". We've seen deals that we normally turn around in 60-days with all-cash offers, take 18-months for "payment plan" deals closed by other firms. The results based on the experience and model employed is indeed apples to oranges. 5. How your business is presented (packaged) is not producing conversions. This too would then be a fault on your banker's side. We "spy on" the competition - it's business as usual on our end - and the typical prospectus and marketing collateral and followup materials are, well, embarassingly slim from, well, everybody. I've never encountered a problem with "the market" (the strategic buyers) and we've sold very niche and distressed properties. We have declined taking on deals where the asking price was a number picked out of la-la-land (in which case we offer complimentary guidance, feedback and let them pursue other avenues for closing the deal - which basically never happens at that asking price)... but that's a sensible discussion and likely one that was already had. If your exit is sub-$100M, your asking price is reasonable (even if aggressive), your business is indeed strong on its metrics, growth and brand value -- then any lack of offers sits with your banker. You're likely looking to play professional basketball but you brought in a kid from a high-school team. Skills mismatch. Upgrade your "player" and you'll move towards a win quite rapidly.