• Closed Series D fundraise led by Updata Partners on 6 February
• Expects more than USD 100m revenue and profitability this year
• Acquisitions possible within next year

Piano Software, a global provider of technology for digital experience management, customer journey orchestration, and advanced analytics, could look for a new financial sponsor within 12-24 months, said Trevor Kaufman, CEO.

“We plan to have a formal process to recap the business,” he said.

Piano’s client base used to be 100% media companies. Now, media comprises about 70%. It also serves airlines, banks, energy companies, healthcare and telecommunications, retail businesses and marketplaces. “We’re leaning into sales and marketing this year,” he added.

The company, based in Amsterdam, expects to exceed USD 100m in revenue this year and become profitable, Kaufman said.

Piano has already been receiving interest from large private equity groups, he said. “There are not a ton of USD 100m profitable businesses that smaller PEs could look at,” he said. For this reason, he said the company’s next owner is likely to be a large financial sponsor.

Piano’s specialty is digital revenue optimization. “Most companies focus on marketing campaigns,” Kaufman said. Piano focuses on the client journey from clicking a link to subscribe to or purchase a product to retaining the customer relationship. “We optimize those commercial activities,” with a goal to make revenue per user go up with higher conversion rates, “basket” size and retention rates, he said.

Piano expects to resume M&A within the next 12 months. Future targets should ideally have USD 10m-USD 30m in revenue, Kaufman said.

“We have not been as active on the buyside in the current environment and probably won’t be for the rest of the year,” Kaufman said. “But we hope to return next year.” Houlihan Lokey will help on the buyside when the company starts acquiring again, but Piano also welcomes ideas from sell-side advisors, he added.

Three of the company’s four acquisitions have been of European businesses and future buys could also be outside the US, he said. Its most recent acquisition was of SocialFlow in 2022.

Piano provides a “real-time data layer for businesses”, he said, through personalization and marketing automation. In 2026, it could look to acquire marketing technology platforms with embedded data to add to the platform, he said.

Recapped to deleverage

In February, the company raised a total of USD 120m in capital, including USD 45m in equity led by existing investor Updata and a USD 75m debt placement led by Runway Growth Capital. Updata, the majority owner of the business, first invested in the company in 2019.

The February capital raise transaction came together through a narrow sale process. “We talked to a couple of folks hanging around the hoop and got other term sheets,” Kaufman said. But in the end, “we had such a great experience with Updata that as the term sheets came in, they (Updata) made the decision to bring in limited partners on the process.”

The company financed its four acquisitions to date mainly with debt. “This round with Runway and Updata as LPs (limited partners) was to reduce the debt load on the company and find a more entrepreneurial lender to work with,” Kaufman said.

The company is transitioning from burning cash to being in growth mode and has been cash flow positive for about three months, he said.

Jeff Goldrich, managing director of Runway, said the capital raised will be used for sales and marketing, customer journey subscription management and payroll management as well as data analytics. There will be more emphasis on cross-selling of services, he added.

On the activation side of the business, Piano competes with smaller players such as Zuora and Permutive, Goldrich noted. On the analytics side of the business, it competes with Adobe and Alphabet-owned Google, he said.

Piano prides itself on its global reach and has a robust compliance infrastructure across jurisdictions and industries, particularly on the analytics side. “We heard that repeatedly during diligence,” said Goldrich. Runway fully funded the company’s term loan, he said.

Houlihan Lokey was the sell-side advisor on the capital raise transaction. The firm also provided advice on the company’s four acquisitions, Kaufman said. Dentons is Piano’s law firm.