The three Dutch founders of Software Combined—Niek Hoogenhout, Evert den Hollander, and Stefan Jansen—are challenging traditional acquisition models around the globe. After establishing their company in Australia, they are now entering the European market through Amsterdam's tech hub. Operating with a "we never sell" philosophy, their goal is to create a "forever home for a community of like-minded businesses". Their focus is on amplifying a company's unique identity and legacy, rather than on the short-term returns and cost-cutting typical of traditional investors.
We have known each other for a long time, and our different career paths gave us skillsets that complement each other very well. Over our careers, we developed a shared perspective: hard-working entrepreneurs who built a successful business often lacked good options when it was time to sell. They wanted to ensure their company's mission would continue, but the choices were limited.
Generally, potential buyers were either large corporations that would acquire and absorb these smaller companies—causing the mission, culture, and people to disappear—or private equity firms. These firms tend to have a short-term focus on returns, often cutting costs, limiting investment, and dressing up the business for a sale in 3 to 5 years. They lack the long-term commitment to truly make things work. As a result, too many founders experienced seller's remorse.
We recognized a clear gap in the market and developed a business model designed to continue the mission of these founders and ensure their legacy lives on.
We created a "forever home of like-minded businesses. We invest in successful B2B tech companies that have a strong culture and a clear vision. We don't just protect what makes them special; we amplify it to help them grow in the right direction.
The Netherlands has a strong foundation for technology, ranking fifth out of 27 countries in the EU for the population's IT skills. The Netherlands represents an innovative economy with a major focus on business sophistication and collaboration between companies and research institutions. The country also has a strong education system, with top universities like Delft and Eindhoven producing world-class engineering and computer science graduates.
This means their tech capability is developed domestically, not outsourced. In addition, the Netherlands is widely regarded as the most fluent English-speaking country where English is not the first language and ranks first place in the EF English Proficiency Index (EF EPI) for non-native English-speaking countries. This helps to do business all over the world and attract international talent.
When you combine these factors with the natural Dutch entrepreneurial spirit, the result is a successful and mature tech ecosystem. This has led to the rise of many specialized tech companies that have become leaders in niche industries, such as transportation, agriculture, and process manufacturing, by developing great software for their customers.
The Netherlands enjoys a more mature tech ecosystem than Australia, but the differences are small. We actually see a lot of similarities between the entrepreneurs from both countries. Highly dedicated individuals who are passionate about building solutions for people that will improve their lives. Our Dutch directness and no-nonsense approach is positively viewed by the entrepreneurs we meet in Australia, New Zealand as well as in the Netherlands.
Also, considering the size of these countries and their geographical location, tech entrepreneurs in both regions share a crucial quality: they have a global mindset from day one. They are inherently open-minded about working internationally and actively focus on exporting their software products from the very beginning.
Our philosophy is simple: we never sell a company. This commitment itself shapes everything we do, fostering a long-term approach in how we manage the business, develop careers, and set strategic goals.
Unlike most acquirers who integrate a company and replace its mission with their own, our goal is to continue the mission each business is already on. We also have a deep respect for the unique culture of each organization we acquire. We know that a strong culture is difficult to build and maintain, yet incredibly easy to destroy, so we make it our priority to protect and nurture it.
Unified Streaming is a prime example of our strategy: it is a technically near-unique solution in a defensible and growing niche with blue chip clients serviced by loyal and talented staff under passionate leadership who were looking to strengthen the business with our presence and continue the mission the business is on. No amount of AI can solve the multi-faceted compromises to be made when formulating and negotiating video standards and then implementing and selling those.
We simply look at the industry dynamics in a niche. Defensible moats come in many shapes and sizes - however they are easily spotted. In the case of Unified Streaming it is the super product, long-lasting client relationships, trust and respect, and influence that were built across this sector, especially within the standard setting bodies and the client base. Such strong bonds and deep expertise in a relatively focused niche is not easily replicated by any newcomer.
We do not integrate businesses with each other. We believe that marriage-at-first-sight is not a successful strategy of bringing two cultures together. We do not want to change winning teams. We acknowledge the value of each investee's culture and personality and cherishing that is hard-coded into Software Combined's DNA. Our founders have learned that 'Culture Eats Strategy For Breakfast' - so we invest only in strong, positive, high-performance cultures and ensure that those need to be understood and maintained.
The Benelux is a perfect landing spot stepping out of our Australian cradle. Our Teams have a clear focus today on the Benelux because we see rich opportunities and we have 5 native Dutch speakers in our midst. We are determined to build a strong presence in the Netherlands and continue our expansion from there to other parts of Europe.
M&A is done on the basis of trust; while all countries are different, one common theme is trust as an unalienable ingredient of a transaction. We have learned that Dutch straight talk is appreciated across countries at the level of entrepreneurial founders. They all want to know what the give-and-take of the deal is; they all appreciate directness. So while we are personally reasonably global in our work experiences, the frankness of our birth culture seems to reflect our straight-forward style and has become our trademark communication style: friendly and transparent. Although there is communality among the tech entrepreneurs from different countries, the ease of doing business and the regulatory framework is substantially different per country, which can help or hinder entrepreneurs depending on where they are located.
We are looking for great companies and they exist in all these different B2B software sectors, we do not necessarily have a preference for one segment over the other. AI is a great opportunity for the tech industry to improve and build better products and we are focused on improving our businesses with it.
We do not profess to have the clout to influence the European B2B software landscape, certainly not at this point. If we can continue to build an ecosystem of software companies that allows these companies to continue what they set out to do and improve and grow beyond what the original owners ever thought was possible, we are on the right track.
We aim to build leading players in the niche industries where these companies started, so all of the above. The ecosystem that they operate in under the Software Combined umbrella should be leading and best practice and an example of how to run a successful tech company, providing incredible results while having a work force that is getting the best out of itself. We hope to have grown into an acquirer of choice, a company that software businesses aspire to be part of.
