How much do bootstrapped startups sell for?

Want to know how much bootstrapped startups sell for? Here's some SaaS companies, newsletters and communities with how much they went for. These are companies that have not raised venture capital funding - they are self-funded/bootstrapped.

The biggest acquisitions tend to happen for Software as a Service (SaaS) companies. This is because SaaS companies are usually highly profitable, scale really well and bring in predictable revenue for the acquirer. Valuations for SaaS are often in the 3-4x revenue range but they can go for more if the company is dominant in its category or is in a sought-after space.

Other startups listed below include communities and newsletters, which are often acquired for strategic reasons if a company wants to expand its audience quickly.

Mailchimp: $12bn in 2021

This email marketing SaaS was created by Ben Chestnut and Mark Armstrong way back in 2001. Mailchimp went on to dominate email marketing for the next 20 years. The founders paid employees high salaries but didn't give up any equity so when they sold for $12bn, they got 100% of the sale price. They did hand out big bonuses though.

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Mailchimp

Follow Up Boss: $500m in 2024

Follow Up Boss was a real estate customer relationship management (CRM) tool which was built over the course of 12 years. It was acquired by real estate giant Zillow for $400m in cash with a $100m earnout for the founders.

TweetHunter/Taplio: $8m in 2023

This LinkedIN and Twitter writing tool was created by two French entrepreneurs: Tibo was a developer and Tom was a marketer. Together they created TweetHunter, a scheduling and AI writing tool for Twitter. Later, they founded a similar tool for LinkedIn called Taplio. They sold both companies to Lempire in 2023 for around $8m.