Associate Director - Investments

Description

This role is part of our Central M&A Team at saas.group.

What is saas.group?

Think of us as the driving catalyst behind your favorite software success stories. saas.group, established in 2017, is on a mission to turbocharge promising B2B SaaS ventures, unlocking their full potential. As a Software-as-a-Service portfolio powerhouse, we specialize in acquiring small software treasures and polishing them into industry stars. With a dynamic, fully remote team of nearly 380+ colleagues spanning 50+ countries we are truly global and we are rewriting the playbook on SaaS innovation and collaboration. We grow 25 exciting brands under our umbrella. Feel free to explore our Candidate's Hub to get an insider's view, dive into our culture, gain valuable insights into our teams and how we work.

Also, don’t forget to follow saas.group on LinkedIn to stay up-to-date on our job openings, podcast episodes, and with all things happening at our company.

Profile Overview

Our Investment Team deploys $50M+ of capital a year into niche, bootstrapped PLG software companies across North America and Western Europe. These are capital-efficient, founder-built businesses that most funds overlook because they are too small, too founder-owned or too unconventional. We see the opportunity, and we operate what we buy.

We're hiring an Associate Director, Investments to sit in the principal seat. You'll report to our Head of M&A, work alongside an existing Associate Director and have significant exposure to our C-suite. As deal captain, you qualify the opportunity, make the first offer, build the investment case, set the price, negotiate with the founder, run diligence and take the deal to close. You won't be building pitch books or playing a supporting role, and you won't wait years to lead a deal of your own. Your judgement decides where our capital goes.

If you bring the commercial diligence skills or deal instincts of a lower mid-market PE or M&A team, and you want to own outcomes rather than advise on them, this is your role. You'll work directly with founders, our C-suite and the operators who scale the businesses you buy.

Your impact in the first 6-12 months will be:

• Own early-stage qualification: take new opportunities from first call to a non-binding offer quickly, kill weak ones early and turn the strongest into IC-ready investment cases.
• Earn the trust of founders, our C-suite and the operating teams who will run the businesses you buy.
• Step in as deal captain on your first live transactions and drive them from LOI to signed SPA.

Your responsibilities

• Capital allocation: Underwrite every deal you lead. Form a clear view on value, risk and returns, write the investment memo and defend your recommendation in front of our Investment Committee.
• Qualification and offers: Qualify new opportunities fast, kill weak ones early and issue non-binding offers on the ones worth pursuing. You set the price and structure that frame the deal all the way to LOI.
• Deal captaincy: Own the process end to end, from first call and non-binding offer through LOI, diligence and SPA to closing. You set the timeline, run the workstreams and own the outcome.
• Commercial due diligence: Lead our in-house CDD. Size the market, map the competition, define the right to win and get to the truth on quality of revenue: retention, concentration, pricing power and the durability of growth.
• Financial and commercial modelling: Build models from a blank sheet: ARR bridges, cohort and retention analysis, unit economics, scenarios, valuation and returns.
• Negotiation: Lead negotiations with founders and their advisors on price, structure and key terms, landing deals that work for the seller and for our returns.
• Diligence leadership: Run the full DD process across internal experts (finance, tech, product, marketing, legal, people) and external legal, financial and tax advisors, and turn their findings into decisions.
• Stakeholder leadership: Represent saas.group to sellers, brokers and advisors, and work hand in hand with our C-suite, leadership and the operators who take over after closing.
• Coaching: Develop the junior members of the team as a hands-on player-coach.

Requirements

• 6+ years of professional experience after university, with a strong track record in transactions, strategy or both.
• Training at a top-tier firm or team in one or more of:

• • Private equity: lower mid-market transactions, typically sub-$10M EBITDA, ideally in software or tech-enabled services.
  • Strategy consulting: MBB (McKinsey, BCG, Bain) or leading strategy firms such as Roland Berger, Oliver Wyman, Kearney, L.E.K. Consulting, OC&C, Simon-Kucher or Arthur D. Little.
  • Big Four strategy and deals: Strategy& (PwC), EY-Parthenon, Deloitte (Monitor Deloitte / M&A) or KPMG Deal Advisory, especially in commercial due diligence.
  • Corporate development / in-house M&A: ideally at a high-velocity aggregator or buy-and-build strategic.
  • Investment banking: M&A advisory at mid-market or tech-focused boutique banks, ideally on lower mid-market transactions with enterprise values below $50M.

• An investor's mindset: you think like an owner, form a point of view quickly and back it with numbers.
• Live deal experience: you know what it takes to get a deal over the line, and ideally you've led workstreams or been the day-to-day deal lead.
• Excellent financial modelling and valuation skills: you build from a blank sheet and can defend every assumption.
• A player-coach approach: you have experience developing junior talent and enjoy doing it.
• Real commercial due diligence experience: market sizing, competitive analysis, customer and expert interviews, and quality-of-revenue work.
• Presence: you can negotiate with founders selling their life's work and hold your ground with the C-suite and advisors.
• Rigorous project management: you keep multiple parties, timelines and documents moving without dropping the ball.
• A genuine interest in software and SaaS business models. A software background is an advantage but not a requirement.
• Fluent English, written and spoken; additional European languages are a plus.
• Real AI fluency and the drive to put it to work: you already use AI tools (Claude especially) day to day and look for ways they can speed up research, analysis, modelling and diligence workflows.

Benefits

• Principal seat, real ownership: You'll lead deals and allocate capital as a principal, not an advisor, then watch the companies you bought grow inside our portfolio.
• Deal flow and exposure: $50M+ deployed every year across two continents, with direct access to our C-suite and Investment Committee from day one.
• Ultimate flexibility: We’re 100% remote. You can work from wherever you like, whenever you like.
• Freedom and autonomy: We’re a high-trust team, and you’ll be given lots of flexibility to solve problems in your own way — with plenty of help from the team when you need it.
• Minimum bureaucracy: We don’t like to get bogged down with meetings and red tape. We like to be efficient and keep momentum steady & sustainable.
• Small & friendly team: We help each other out, have fun, and joke around.
• Our network: We are a community of entrepreneurial SaaS professionals that regularly exchange ideas, knowledge, learning  and expertise with each other internally. 
• Flexible time off: We want you to recharge your batteries when needed.

We don’t just simply offer you to “take a job with us” but rather to “join us on this journey” to build the world's largest platform of independent SaaS companies. 

Sounds like something you’re up for? Feel free to apply even if you don’t check all these boxes. We believe in the power of diversity and fresh perspectives to spice up our team. Your application might just be the missing ingredient!