Yet, that’s where the real value is.
We’ve seen this play out in vertical after vertical: a wave of consolidation hits, capital flows in, and operators start bundling up niche players to create enterprise-scale platforms. It feels like progress – until the music stops and buyers start asking real questions.
What used to pass for a packaged roll-up just doesn’t cut it anymore. In the early innings of vertical market consolidation, investors were fine taking on the post-acquisition mess. They assumed they could fix operations, optimize tech, and squeeze more EBITDA out of the system. Now? The burden has shifted. If you want to create value, you need to operationalize it first.
And that means integration across people, process and tech.
Five years ago, you could stitch together 30 businesses on paper and let PE figure it out later. Today, they expect a clean, functioning operation with clear revenue levers already pulled. Investors aren’t betting on potential anymore…they want proof.
This isn’t unique to any one vertical. Whether it’s healthcare, real estate, finance, etc, the same playbook is unfolding. The tech stack gets overloaded with point solutions. Internal processes diverge. Operator fatigue sets in. And without standardization and integration, the whole thing starts to buckle.
The Tech Bloat Problem
As vertical SaaS investors, we see it constantly: one core system takes the lead—practice management, ERP, scheduling, whatever—and then the market floods with bolt-ons trying to plug feature gaps. The stack gets bloated. Costs rise. Complexity kills efficiency.
Worse, the loudest advocates for these tools are often individual power users, not business leaders. And when you start consolidating businesses, every team has a different idea of what “best practice” looks like. Now you’ve got 50 locations, 15 systems, 9 dashboards, and zero alignment.
That’s not a platform. That’s a mess.
What Happens Next: The M&A Land Grab
Eventually, the bigger tech players make their move. They start acquiring point solutions, not because they’re the best, but because they’re available and come with customers. It’s a perception play: create the illusion of an integrated platform, boost valuation, and hope nobody looks too closely at the product.
This isn’t always bad, but let’s be clear: most of these aren’t integrations. They’re customer grabs dressed up as synergy. And if you’re building your ops on that kind of foundation, you’re setting yourself up for a painful future.
The Real Play: Value-Based Integration
There’s a smarter way forward. Look for best-of-breed solutions that show real, measurable ROI. Tools that make integration easier, not harder. Products built for operators, not analysts. And most importantly, look at who they partner with.
The strongest vertical SaaS players build meaningful GTM partnerships, not just app integrations. They collaborate on strategy, not just tech specs. These alliances aren’t accidental, they’re deliberate plays to align on outcomes. And they often lead to real M&A opportunities that actually create value on both sides.
The New Standard: Integrated Portfolios That Work
If you’re leading a vertical platform, this is your mandate: drive performance through standardization. Build a tech stack that unifies your data. Create workflows that scale. Invest in tools that move the needle on revenue, productivity, and efficiency.
Because the next turn only comes if you’ve done the hard work. You don’t get credit for buying. You get credit for building.
At In Revenue, we’re investing in vertical SaaS that meets operators where they are: buried under complexity and hungry for clarity. The future isn’t in fragmented tools or flashy dashboards. It’s in integrated ecosystems that drive outcomes and in the operators bold enough to demand them.
