Your customers pay every month. The revenue is predictable enough to hire against. Several accounts have been with you for years.
Then a potential buyer asks a question that takes longer to answer:
Why will those customers still be here after you leave?
The answer sits somewhere between the contracts, the work your team does, and the relationships you have built. A recurring invoice captures only part of it.
Three acquisition announcements this week give founders a useful way to think about the rest. They involve fleet software, document automation, and managed risk services. Different businesses, each doing work that customers need to get done repeatedly.
Alongside them, a fresh earnings release shows what one company’s customer economics actually look like.
The creator economy offers another angle: an acquisition agreement announced this week puts direct fan relationships and licensing at the center of the buyer’s plans.
Recent transactions at a glance
Selected acquisitions, closing updates and equity developments from September 3–10, 2026, inclusive. Dates reflect announcements, closing updates or reporting.
Sources: Baseten / Blaxel · Levenza / Fluid Inference · SoundHound AI / LivePerson · HarbourView / Kershenbaum royalties · GameSquare / FanEngine · Koto / Stereo Creative · Banyan / Veicoli · Smooth Media (Axios) · Valsoft / Square 9 · Concentrix / CastleHill.
These transactions illustrate different acquisition rationales. They do not establish a common valuation multiple or prove that the targets have comparable retention or margins. Creator partnerships and consumer research discussed below are separate from this M&A table.
Start with the job the customer needs done
On September 9, Banyan Software announced its acquisition of Veicoli, an Italian fleet-software provider. Its platform supports maintenance, compliance, and daily vehicle operations, with telematics data feeding into those activities. Banyan emphasized the importance of the software to customers’ operations and the relationships Veicoli has built. Read the announcement.
For a founder, the useful exercise is to describe the consequences of taking your product away.
Would someone have to rebuild a maintenance schedule? Reconcile records manually? Hire another employee? Would an important deadline become harder to meet?
Those answers give substance to the phrase “essential software.” They also give you something specific to measure: hours saved, errors avoided, work completed, or operating capacity added.
On September 8, Valsoft announced the acquisition of Square 9 through TAG Software Group. Square 9 automates document work, including accounts payable, order processing, and contract management, for more than 1,000 organizations. The release says its leadership and employees will remain in place and the business will continue operating autonomously. Read the announcement.
The connection between these businesses is practical. Their software helps people complete work inside an organization. Our reading is that this is a more useful starting point for an acquisition story than the frequency of the invoice alone.
It still needs evidence. Neither announcement gives us the target’s customer-retention figures or enough financial information to establish a valuation multiple. A buyer’s stated rationale helps explain strategic interest; it does not tell us what every similar business is worth.
Services founders have a place in this conversation
Also on September 8, Concentrix announced its acquisition of CastleHill Managed Risk Solutions. CastleHill’s governance, risk, and compliance offering combines specialist people, operating processes, and technology. Concentrix said the acquisition expands its ability to design and run these programs for clients. Terms were not disclosed. Read the announcement.
That is a relevant example for owners of accounting, compliance, technology, and other business-services firms.
An ongoing customer need can support a lasting relationship. But the economics depend on how the work gets delivered. How much follows a documented process? How much requires a senior person to intervene? Can the next client be served by the existing team, or does every new account require another hire?
Consider two hypothetical outsourced accounting firms with the same monthly fees. One uses consistent onboarding, a defined service scope, and a team that closes the books without the founder. The other earns similar revenue, but the owner fixes exceptions every weekend and personally manages each renewal.
The second business may have excellent clients and talented employees. Its owner still has more work to do to demonstrate that delivery can continue through a transition.
The same question applies to an agency whose largest client calls the founder whenever a campaign struggles, or a software company whose engineers routinely build unpaid custom features to preserve accounts.
Recurring revenue is easier to explain when the work behind it is understood.
In the creator economy, ask what the business can retain
On September 9, GameSquare announced an agreement to acquire FanEngine’s assets, which support fan engagement and monetization across sports, music and entertainment. GameSquare said the assets would add opportunities in commerce, events and licensing alongside its agency and campaign revenue. Closing is expected in the fourth quarter, subject to approvals and other conditions. Read the announcement.
This is broader creator-economy M&A, rather than a talent-management acquisition. But the distinction is useful for managers: representing talent, holding commercial rights and owning intellectual property produce different revenue streams. A buyer needs to understand exactly which relationships and rights the business can retain.
Demand for creator expertise also has a timely signal. IAB research released September 9 found that 56% of surveyed consumers preferred AI shopping recommendations incorporating creator perspectives. The study covered 2,200 recent users of AI shopping tools across five countries; it does not represent all consumers or establish what an agency is worth. Read the research.
For a creator-management founder, the practical question is how that demand becomes repeat agency earnings. Which brands return? Which talent relationships generate commissions consistently? How concentrated are those commissions, and who manages the relationships when the founder is away?
Separate brand campaign spending and creator payouts from the revenue the agency actually earns. Then explain the relevant representation terms, content rights and team responsibilities. A large audience can create opportunities; those records help show which earnings could continue under a new owner.
Put a number behind the retention story
ServiceTitan’s September 8 earnings release offers a useful measurement example. For the quarter ended July 31, the company reported 21% year-over-year revenue growth and net dollar retention above 110%. It also reported a $27.6 million GAAP operating loss, alongside $44.4 million in non-GAAP operating income. Those profitability measures use different treatments of expenses and should remain clearly distinguished. Read the results.
This is an operating-results example, not an acquisition comparable or a valuation benchmark for a smaller private company.
Its relevance is the discipline of examining customer revenue and profitability together.
For a simple illustration, take customers who generated $1 million of recurring revenue last year. If that same group generates $1.1 million this year after cancellations, reductions, and expansion, net revenue retention is 110%. Revenue from newly acquired customers stays outside that calculation.
Now look underneath it. Suppose lost and reduced accounts removed $200,000 while expansion added $300,000. The net figure looks healthy, but there is still customer erosion to understand. This is why it helps to examine retention before expansion as well as after it.
For a services business, pair that customer analysis with the cost of delivery. An account that spends more but requires disproportionately more senior time may contribute less than the revenue increase suggests.
Five questions to answer before a buyer asks
You do not need to be planning a sale to make this useful. Start with your largest customers and the last twelve months of actual results.
1. What revenue is reasonably expected to repeat?
Separate subscriptions and ongoing service agreements from setup fees, implementation work, and individual projects. Record renewal dates and cancellation rights. Repeat business can be valuable even without a long contract; describe it accurately.
2. Why do customers renew?
Use renewal conversations, product usage, and service outcomes to identify the reason. “They like us” is a beginning. “We complete a necessary monthly process accurately, with less work for their team” is an explanation you can investigate and support.
3. What does it cost to keep the promise?
Include onboarding, support, customization, and the senior time that may never appear on a client invoice. Look for customers whose fees have stayed flat while their demands have grown.
4. Where is the business dependent?
Identify concentration in customers, employees, referral partners, and platforms. If your largest account left, which costs could adjust? If you stepped away for a month, who could handle the relationship and the work?
5. Can someone else verify the answers?
Bring the customer schedule, contracts, invoices, and financial records into agreement. Give a colleague enough information to explain a renewal, a lost account, and a margin change without relying on your memory.
Doing this may reveal a pricing problem, a service that needs a clearer scope, or a relationship that should extend beyond the founder. Each is a concrete operating decision you can address now.
This week’s announcements offer examples of buyers investing in businesses that perform important, ongoing work. The next step for a founder is to show how that work produces customer loyalty, sustainable earnings, and continuity under new ownership.
That is a stronger answer to the buyer’s question. It is also a useful way to decide what to improve before a buyer ever calls.
Which of the five questions is hardest to answer for your business? Reply and tell us. We’ll use those questions to shape a future issue.
Stellamont is a sell-side M&A advisory firm for founder-owned businesses in marketing infrastructure, software and SaaS, tech-enabled services, and the creator economy. We represent sellers exclusively, never buyers. stellamont.com
"Why will those customers still be here after you leave" is the only question that matters, and most founders never sit down and actually answer it. We push this same test on every athlete brand we build at UNITE - if the whole thing collapses the day the athlete stops posting, you built a campaign, not a business. Equity only means something if the asset can survive without you in the room.