Private Equity Exits Disappear for B2B Startups at Moderate Growth Rates
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What’s wrong with slower growth today? Is it time to take a break from the seemingly toxic tweets on X/Twitter about how you have to go from $1m to $10m ARR in just months? Almost how 100%+ growth has to last … almost forever? Maybe it is all a bit toxic. Maybe it really doesn’t matter exactly how fast you grow, as long as you get there. The problem just in B2B is the exits for folks not growing super quickly have most evaporated. Until even 2024, PE firms would regularly offer to buy B2B startups once they hit $20m ARR growing 30%-40% or more, as long as they were cash flow neutral. Almost every B2B startup like that got PE offers to buy them. Sometimes in the 3x-4x ARR range, sometimes 5x-6x ARR, and once in a while even 8x-10x ARR if the overall space was hot. Today those PE offers are just … gone. They don’t exist. So there’s nothing wrong with slow growth per se, as long as it doesn’t decelerate. As long as it doesn’t also give the competition a chance to catch and pass you (which it often does). No the real problem with slow growth in 2026 is … you end up with No Exits. Not fun to spend years getting to $20m, $30m+ ARR, even $100m ARR, and find your stock has no value in today’s world. Grow or Die. That’s today’s world.