Rollupeurope's greatest hits of 2024 - and what to look forward to in 2025

To our readers, partners and supporters - a heartfelt thank you!

In the course of 2024, you helped us grow readership 3x, against an astonishing 67% open rate. We took one giant step closer towards building a “SaaStr for rollups”: a worldwide community for Acquisition Entrepreneurs. 

We don't care how small or big you are. You may be captaining billion-dollar buy & builds. Or maybe you have just bought your first business from an online marketplace. RollUpEurope is open to the entire serial acquirer demographic. 

We do care about your feedback though. Throughout the year, the 3 things you have consistently told us are:

1. Become less London centric + invest in the US footprint 

2. Expand coverage of non software rollups

3. Do more video content, especially interviews with rollup founders      

The answer to all 3 is a resounding YES! We have several events planned in Continental Europe and North America in the course of 2025. This includes the Redeye Serial Acquirer Conference in Stockholm, Sweden, in March and the HoldCo Conference in Sundance, Utah, in April.

There are still tickets available: grab yours today!  

Equally, if you would like to host a RollUpEurope event in your city, let us know! 

Our 2025 pipeline is brimming with the content we know you will love. Expect to read lots about business services rollups, such as fire safety 🧯(a mammoth 3-part writeup is on the way) and green landscaping 🌳.

There has been a surge of interest in Youtube rollups since Moonbug’s $3B exit - so guess what - we have researched that too.   

As for 2024, here are our top 10 greatest hits ranked by you, our readers (based on the sum of open and click rates). Enjoy the recap!

Alex and Pavel

1. Do it like Everfield: how PE firms structure software serial acquirers. Everfield’s software empire spans the width of Europe, from Lithuania to Spain. It pays more than Constellation, does not integrate and carries a massive overhead. But so what? There’s premium in scale.     

2. My Super Sweet 16: A peek inside Hg’s software portfolio. HgCapital is the O.G. of software rollups (Visma, Access, IRIS etc). We review Hg’s investment philosophy; mark to mark valuations; and the deal structuring playbook.   

3. Fundraising is hard - but you can do it! A shameless plug for our investor database, but not only! Battle tested blueprint for a fundraising strategy that doesn't suck.  

4. Your face looks familiar! The “medspa” rollup clones coming to your high street. Judging by the reactions to this article, 80% of our readers either run a medspa rollup, or have invested into one. I don't fully get the appeal, but if you want, we can make a series out of it!

5. 4.5 years. 0 bolt-ons. 11x return. The mid market investor CBPE delivered an eye-popping return out of a very unsexy but mission critical software business called Xceptor.

6. No Sponsor? No Pr…No Sponsor? No Problem! Learnings from 2 non PE backed aggregators. Guys, it is 2025: even in Europe, you don't need a PE firm or a rich uncle to seed a rollup. We explain how, based on two real life examples (Unaric and AscendX).

7. RDCP: Britain’s most audacious SME serial acquirer? 10 years ago: 2 immigrants in their 20s with £2M starting capital. Today: 30+ companies with $400M combined revenue. We don't sugarcoat the story. We give you the exact playbooks that Sameer and Iryna used to build their empire, while ignoring the naysayers (and sometimes the creditors too).    

8. 64X MOIC target & American search fund royalty: what “permanent equity” REALLY looks like. If buying small businesses cheaply, for 20+ years straight is your cup of tea, there are American folks called Compounding Labs who'd like to write you a check.     

9. Chapters Group revenues have topped $100M. What does it actually do? We applaud Chapters’ ingenious idea of recycling the proceeds of stock sales to billionaires into moderately priced European software buys. We need more people like Jan-Hendrik Mohr!   

10. Meet The Sage of Newcastle compounding at 40% CAGR. What?! As an ex FIG investment banker I have a soft spot for the wealth management industry. True Potential’s 500,000 strong customer base is the result of its relentless pursuit of retiring advisors. TP’s 80% EBITDA margin is the outcome of a vertically integrated model, and holds lessons for rollups in all industries.