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- Climb's M&A Weekly: Bain, Blackstone, and HealthEdge all feature
Climb's M&A Weekly: Bain, Blackstone, and HealthEdge all feature
Bain buys HealthEdge and Duetto acquires HotStats
Nick @ Climb
April 13, 2025
Welcome back to the Climb Advisors weekly newsletter with five deals from across the B2B tech landscape. Sentiment is strong in the M&A community, with many expecting 2025 to be a record year in terms of deal volume & aggregate value. Valuations are strong & buyers are eager to deploy capital.
Climb Advisors focuses on sell-side advisory for B2B Software and services companies generating $5m-$15m in revenue. We also advise on credit placements and non-dilutive capital solutions for companies of the same profile & in select cases engage in retained buy-side processes for quality buyers. We love to talk markets and connect dots - please don’t hesitate to reach out if you’re a founder or investor looking to transact.
Bain Capital makes strategic investment into HeathEdge
Overview: HealthEdge, a healthcare technology solutions provider, has been bought by Bain Capital. HealthEdge is a SaaS platform that connects patients with providers and health plans. The company’s solutions automate operations and help to reduce administrative costs. The company serves over 115 health plans and has provided coverage to over 110 million Americans. Read more here.
Climb Comment: Bain continues its push into the healthcare technology space with its $2.6 billion acquisition of HealthEdge from its former owner, Blackstone. Blackstone funded multiple bolt-on acquisitions including Wellframe and Altruista Health over the past few years. Last year, HealthEdge did ~$400m in revenue and ~$86m in EBITDA giving the deal a multiple of 6.5x revenue and 30x EBITDA. Blackstone tried to sell HealthEdge a few years back but couldn’t receive the valuation they were looking for but this time around Bain was able to make it work.
Duetto, backed by GrowthCurve Capital acquires HotStats
Overview: Duetto, a hotel revenue management company, has acquired HotStats, a hotel benchmarking firm. Duetto was founded in 2012, and is a cloud-based revenue management platform that provides data and insights on pricing, forecasting, and demand for the hospitality industry. HotStats provides profitability benchmarking for hotel owners as well as reports for analysts and investors. Read more here.
Climb Comment: GrowthCurve Capital acquired Duetto in June of 2024 with the goal of enhancing its AI offerings while unifying revenue streams under a single platform. In February 2024, Duetto acquired Micerate, an event booking and dynamic pricing technology company. With that acquisition, and now the purchase of HotStats, Duetto is able to provide a comprehensive solution for revenue management and profit optimization.
Portnox receives growth investment from Updata Partners
Overview: Portnox, a cybersecurity company, raised $37.5 million in Series B funding from Updata Partners. Portnox is a provider of cloud-native and zero trust access solutions and Updata Partners is a growth equity fund. This investment from Updata will be used for product innovation and expanded market reach and penetration. Read more here.
Climb Comment: Denny LeCompte, CEO of Portnox, mentions that the future of cybersecurity is in the cloud. Companies are replacing their on-site Network Access Control systems with cloud-native solutions and Portnox is at the forefront of this change. Updata Partners has made over 75 investments and 55 exits since its inception. Updata loves Portnox’s cloud-native product, which has a 95% customer retention rate. In 2022, Portnox received $22 million in Series A funding from Elsewhere Partners, and the company has raised a total of $59.5 million.
Model ML acquires presentation review platform
Overview: Model ML, a revolutionary AI platform for the financial services industry, has acquired Flippr, an AI powered presentation review platform. Model ML can analyze documents and emails, transcribe meetings, link directly with data vendors, analyze real-time data across markets, and much, much more. Flippr automates repetitive tasks in the financial services industry using AI. Read more here.
Climb Comment: Model ML was founded by Chaz and Arnie Englander, both of whom have been backed by YC three times. Flippr was founded by a former investment banking director and uses agentic AI to do a lot of tasks that new investment banking analysts have to do. Over the past few months on this newsletter we have highlighted the use cases for AI in big law, automating many of the tedious tasks junior law associates have to perform & we expect to see similar trends in the investment banking world as well in the coming years.
Digicomm International acquires a smart infrastructure company
Overview: Digicomm International, backed by Crestview Partners, has acquired EasyStreet Systems, a manufacturer of smart poles and infrastructure. Digicomm is a telecommunications provider and this move expands its capabilities into the infrastructure space. EasyStreet’s poles are composite instead of steel and reduce carbon emissions by up to 75%. Read more here.
Climb Comment: Digicomm offers broadband and telecommunications components and here moves further into smart infrastructure. By taking control of more of the infrastructure equation Digicomm can help clients deploy comprehensive smart city installations and capture cost savings. Crestview Partners is a value-oriented PE group with ~$10 billion in assets and will take an active role in helping Digicomm integrate EasyStreet.
Article of the week
Worth reading this week is Tobi Luttke of Shopify’s memo which outlays ‘reflexive AI usage as a baseline expectation’. Tobi states that Shopify is all-in on AI and that despite growing pains and learning curves that learning to operate in the new paradigm will be a requirement.
Thanks for following along & hope you found something useful or interesting. Please don’t hesitate to reach out if you’re considering a sale this year - we’re always glad to chat & share perspective.
All the best,
Nick