Sep’25 edition | How to Sell Your Company at the Best Price
Why more revenue alone won’t raise your valuation and what buyers and investors actually look at.
Hello, CEOs 👋
In this newsletter, you’ll discover:
● When is the right time for M&A?● What your company would be worth if you sold today● How to raise your valuation before selling
🏅Wiseboard achievements
● We’re collaborating with Lviv IT Cluster as M&A Ready Acceleration Partner● We’ve launched a new annual program, Growth Office.● +3 new advising projects: Growth Office, Presale, and Delivery tracks● +2 new advisors joined. Our pool now totals 294 expert advisors.
Let’s get to it.
“I’m thinking about selling my company, but…”
“...maybe I should wait before the things calm down”
If that sounds like you, I’ve got bad news.
The number of M&A deals in the Ukrainian IT sector fell by more than half: from 24 in 2019 to 11 in 2024.
Even when deals do happen, they’re much smaller. In 2019, total deal value was over $200M. By 2024, it was just $10M. That’s a drop of about 95%.
Source: Capital Times. Data as of February 2025
Maybe things will “calm down”, maybe not. No one can know for sure.
What we do know is that around 6% of IT companies simply shut down last year. They weren’t sold or merged. They simply disappeared. That’s what Iryna Rudenko, Head of the M&A Office at Lviv IT Cluster, told me. Her team saw this trend firsthand.
Sounds like you?
Too many founders of software development companies wait until M&A becomes the last resort to save their business. They often have payroll problems and stagnating or declining growth.
If you're in this situation, and M&A is your strategy, buyers can feel it. And they will discount your business if they consider buying at all.
What should you do instead?
You need to start M&A preparation early. Here is a case study of one of our Wiseboard clients.
📑 Case in Point → Artkai
In 2023, Ukrainian IT company Artkai sold part of their company to the Polish IT consortium Euvic Group. Artkai's main focus at that time was FinTech, PropTech, and MarTech. They used the deal as a growth move. Instead of trying to enter those markets on their own, they teamed up with a bigger player and scaled their business.
Looks like the strategy is working because Wiseboard BizDev advisor recently helped Artkai retain their first enterprise client. Great case.
You may think:
I want to sell, but we need more revenue to raise the price tag. Otherwise, I’ll undersell.
It's not entirely faulty thinking. But it pressures you to close more deals and hire more staff, instead of focusing on reshaping your business to increase its worth.
Let’s make it visual.
The iron bar rule
Take a 1 kg bar of raw iron. As raw material, it might be sold for around $100.
● If you turn it into horseshoes, its price will increase to $200+● If you turn it into thousands of sewing needles → $10k+● If you turn it into precision springs for watches → $1M+
Value doesn’t come from what something is at the start, but from how you use it. Same with your business.
Think of your IT company as raw material. How you shape it (through operations, leadership, and client portfolio) determines whether buyers see a $400K company… an $800K one… or a multimillion-dollar opportunity.
Our M&A Ready Acceleration Program with Lviv IT Cluster was built to help founders reshape their business. It’s designed to help you raise your multiple by fixing what drags valuation down and preparing you for the best M&A deal.
In light of this program, Wiseboard welcomed Lviv IT Cluster’s Iryna Rudenko as our M&A partner. She specializes in guiding IT companies through investment and acquisition processes. Iryna has led readiness assessments, buy-side and sell-side support, and post-merger integrations.
I asked Iryna to share the questions she hears most from the founders about M&A.
❓❓What founders ask most about M&A
Here are the two most common questions, answered.
Question 1:
When is the right time to sell?
It depends on what mode you’re in:
● Survival mode● Growth stuck● Exit-ready
Here’s a quick framework:
The key is to diagnose your mode and align your strategy.
Question 2:
What’s my company worth today, and how do I raise that number?
Depending on the size of the company in Ukraine, a lot of IT companies are being evaluated for 2–3X EBITDA.
If your EBITDA is $200K, your price today is $400K–$600K.
But if you prepare 6–12 months before approaching buyers, both numbers can move up. Multiples rise when buyers see predictability and stability.
Here’s what they check most often:
Founder-independent businesses are easier to grow and sell. When these signals are weak, deals fail or your valuation drops.
The takeaway?
If you’re thinking about selling (or just want to make your company more attractive to investors), plan ahead. Fix the red flags now, so you can negotiate from the position of strength later.
📺 Wiseboard Online Talks
What we talked about
● Technical presale for AI projects: How to avoid common mistakes and increase the win rate ● How proposal creation has evolved with AI coding tools● Red flags that kill AI projects before they start● Why most companies get technical scoping completely wrong● The real cost of misaligned sales and tech teams
📚 Helpful resources
👉 Merge, Scale, or Sell? M&A Decision Framework: Get a framework to help you see exactly where you stand and what move makes sense now.
👉 Buyer-ReadyChecklist: Are you actually ready to go to market, or just hoping it'll work out? Get the checklist.
👉 33 hidden red flags that lower your valuation by 10–30%: A checklist we put together with Lviv IT Cluster on issues that quietly kill deals during due diligence.
👉 M&A reality check [part 1]: Quick video we did with Iryna: 10 checkpoints with red/green flags to test if your company is M&A-ready.
👉 M&A reality check [part 2]: Second set of 10 checkpoints to help you assess your readiness.
Have your own take on the topic? Join the conversation via email.
💻 Just launched
M&A Ready Acceleration Program with Lviv IT Cluster to help IT companies raise their multiples and sell (or merge) on the best terms:
● Diagnosis: Cluster runs a due diligence: finances, legal, delivery, team. You get today’s valuation, plus a list of red flags that lower it. ● Transformation: Wiseboard builds a roadmap to fix those issues and works alongside your team to execute.● Re-check: Cluster audits again with the same standards. You get a new, higher valuation, the number you can take to buyers or investors.
📞 Book a call. Let’s make sure you sell without a discount.
Learn more here >>
👤 Available talents for hire
● Account Manager/Client Partner/BDM● Partner Manager● Delivery Manager/Head of Delivery/PMO● Marketing Manager
Message me if you have any of these job openings.
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