M&A Science Live - How to Buy Companies That Aren't Profitable Yet
Venture-backed M&A is one of the most structurally complex deals a corp dev team can run. The target is priced at a future state. The founder thinks their company is worth more than it is. And your board wants to know why you're paying a premium for negative EBITDA.
Matt Arsenault has navigated this at Jamf — a public company acquiring venture-backed targets in the Apple enterprise ecosystem — and at Dell EMC, Everbridge, and GE before that. He's been in the room where the bid-ask gap looks unbridgeable, where earnouts get ugly, and where figuring out if the founder actually wants to stay post-close makes or breaks the integration.
In this live session, Kison unpacks Matt's framework for pricing growth, closing valuation gaps, and structuring deals that work after the wire clears — not just on signing day.
Live Q&A at the end. Bring your deal questions.
What You'll Learn
How to value a company priced on future potential, not current EBITDA
Where the biggest disconnect happens between VC, PE, and strategic buyers — and how to navigate it
How to close bid-ask gaps using earnouts, equity rollovers, and structural terms beyond the headline price
How to tell early if a founder is planning to cash out or commit post-close
How to prepare entrepreneurs for diligence without killing deal momentum
What 'Rule of 40' tells you about whether a founder really understands their business
What to build into your process if you want to actually win venture-backed deals at scale
Who Should Attend
Corporate development professionals, strategy leads, and integration practitioners who work on or are building toward an inorganic growth pipeline that includes venture-backed or growth-stage targets.
Speaker Bios
Kison Patel – Founder, M&A Science | Chairman, DealRoom
Kison built DealRoom to ~$10M ARR and has led M&A execution across hundreds of transactions. He founded M&A Science to extract and share the patterns strong buyers use to win deals, turning practitioner experience into searchable, reusable intelligence.
Matt Arsenault - VP of Corporate Development and Strategic Alliances at Jamf
He is leading Apple enterprise device management and security platform serving 70,000+ organizations and 30 million devices worldwide. He has spent 15+ years in corporate development across Dell EMC (30+ diligence exercises, 15 acquisitions, 11 integrations), GE, Everbridge, and now Jamf — where he leads acquisition strategy for a public company buying in a market full of VC-backed targets. He holds an MBA from Wharton and is a CFA and CPA. His perspective is grounded in the mechanics of getting these deals done, not the theory.
Member Access
M&A Science members get:
Full session recording access inside the Membership library
Session takeaways (key insights organized for practitioners)
Access to the broader M&A Science member library (plays, templates, and real-world frameworks)
If you want access: Become an M&A Scientist. Join the community of the best practitioners in M&A.
→ Membership: $995/year → mascience.com/membership
FAQs
Will this session be recorded?
Yes. The recording will be available in DealPilot, powered by M&A Science, for members. Non-members can register to attend live.
What if I can't attend live?
Register anyway. The recording will be available through DealPilot. DealPilot members get access before public release.
What is DealPilot, powered by M&A Science?
DealPilot, powered by M&A Science, is the deal guidance layer for buy-side teams — practitioner-built playbooks, frameworks, certification programs, and primary source intelligence from 400+ practitioners who have actually run the deals. $995/year at mascience.com/membership.