Welcome to the Continua Software Newsletter

Welcome to our first Continua Software Newsletter! Last year, we spent a lot of time meeting with you, and we’d like to stay in touch. About Us Continua Software is a privately owned, acquirer of niche market software companies. We buy, operate and grow software companies from owner-operators who want to retire or do something new. Our aim is to be the buyer of choice for owners that want a simple and fair transaction and care about what happens next to their company and the people in it. You may have met us under our previous name, Continua Capital. Last year we decided this name did not accurately describe who we are; we are not just capital. We are business operators building a family of software companies tha​​t are, or are capable of becoming, leaders in their market categories. Plus, “Continua Software” looks better embroidered on those puffer vests… Our Journey So Far We acquired our first company, InTouch Data, in late 2021 during the travel restrictions of COVID-19. Intouch is the leading BI and data analytics solution for large hotel and hospitality companies looking to integrate their guest data onto a single pane of glass. The company had two shareholders: Peter, who was looking to retire and Ryan, a minority shareholder who felt like there was unfinished business, and wanted to remain with the company and continue to grow it, while considering a potential exit in the next 5-10 years. We were incredibly impressed with what the team had built and within two weeks of meeting the owners we were able to put an unconditional binding offer to them. The offer met Peter’s wishes to exit immediately and allowed Ryan to take some money off the table and work with us to continue to build company value. We worked with Ryan and the Intouch team to upgrade internal systems such as billing, accounting and CRM. We built out the management team with the addition of a CTO, Customer Success Lead and a new VP of Sales, which alongside an investment in marketing and branding, became the first structured sales motion for the company. These changes bore fruit, with growth exceeding 50% year on year and the company is now on track to deploy it’s solution to over 5,000 hotels. This attracted the attention of Otelier, the world’s leading hospitality performance optimisation platform, leading them to make an offer to acquire the Intouch team and product suite. We’d hoped to be the long-term owners of Intouch but the offer combined with the opportunity for the Intouch team to become a central part of Otelier’s growth story was too good to turn down. Needless to say, Ryan was pleased, if not a bit surprised, that his growth and exit targets were achieved so quickly!  Ryan Smith, MD, Intouch Data “The team at Continua were likeable, experienced, and able to offer a simple deal structure that made me want to work with them. I can confidently say that selling to them was the best decision for our company and employees.” Reflecting on the experience, it confirmed to us that: There are great software businesses in Australia and New Zealand that with the right ownership and support can unlock growth and become category leading companies. All things being equal, we’d be much happier holding on to a company like Intouch, but as a good friend, Kevin McArdle, says “buy and hold is our business strategy, it's not our religion”. What’s Next We’ve spent the better part of the last year meeting business owners, learning about their businesses, and looking to add the next few software companies to the Continua family. If you own, operate, or know of a business that fits our criteria we’d love to hear from you. Please also check out our Scout program which provides a way for us to say thank you to the friends in our community that refer a company to us that we go on to acquire. Join the Gang   We’re also working on building out our network of great operators that can help build our companies, either in a leadership or specialist role. If you know someone that could be a great fit, please have them reach out to us via hiring@continuasoftware.com or fill out this form.  What’s Your Software Company Worth? The Continua team have been in the acquisitions game for a long time. Collectively, we’ve got 40 years of track-record, dozens of private software company exits on the buy and sell side and we’ve evaluated thousands of companies along the way. We’ve seen it all, and more than once! As an acquirer of small software companies ($2M to $10M in revenue) we’ve learned some things about how sellers can maximise the value of their business, get a deal that they’re happy with, and know when it's the right time to sell. We’ve distilled those insights down into one document: What’s Your Software Company Worth? Whether you are thinking about selling now, or in ten years' time, we think it’s worth a read. ​​ Download Here Continue the Conversation Shane and Kara are hitting Sydney 21-24 May and would love to grab some time with friends and founders in the area so please reach out if you’ll be around!