Mandate / 01 · Strategic Business Advisory
Series C SaaS platform
Repositioned a horizontal product around two vertical wedges, unlocking enterprise expansion and a 3.4× ARR multiple over twenty-two months.
— The situation
A well-funded platform had built a genuinely horizontal product and was losing every competitive review to narrower rivals. Growth was intact but the cost of winning each account had doubled in two years, and the board was being asked to fund a sales expansion into that headwind.
— The outcome
Revenue grew 284% across the following twenty-two months, with enterprise contract value rising faster than seat count. The business raised its subsequent round on the strength of the vertical thesis at a 3.4× multiple on forward ARR.
— What we did
- 01 Rebuilt the win/loss picture from primary interviews with buyers the company had lost, not only with those it had won.
- 02 Tested seven candidate verticals against switching cost, buying-committee shape and the product’s genuine advantage, rather than against market size.
- 03 Designed a two-wedge strategy with an explicit list of what the company would stop selling, and a pricing architecture that made the wedges legible.
- 04 Sequenced the operating plan so that the first wedge had to prove itself before the second was funded.
Client identity withheld under the firm’s confidentiality standard. Figures are the client’s own, measured over the period stated. Past outcomes are not a guide to future results, and nothing here is a recommendation with respect to any security.