What Micro PE Funds Actually Look For When Buying Apps
How micro private equity funds evaluate indie apps — and how to make yours acquisition-ready.
Micro PE is the term for funds that acquire and operate small software businesses — typically deals in the $10k–$2M range. They're not venture capital (they don't fund new builds) and they're not traditional private equity (they don't require $5M+ deals). They're operators with capital who buy indie apps, run them efficiently, and hold long-term.
Why micro PE is the best buyer for most indie devs
Compared to individual buyers or marketplaces, micro PE funds have three advantages that matter to sellers:
They move quickly. A motivated micro PE fund can go from first contact to signed LOI in two weeks and close in 30 days. Individual buyers often take months.
They pay fair prices. Micro PE funds model businesses carefully and price based on fundamentals — they're not looking for a steal, they're looking for a reliable acquisition.
They have operators ready. You don't hand your app to someone who has to figure out how to run it. They have support staff, marketing playbooks, and infrastructure already in place.
The core criteria
Most micro PE funds are looking for the same four signals:
- MRR of at least $1k/month — below this, the deal economics don't work for a fund
- Monthly churn under 5% — ideally under 2%
- The founder is not in the critical path — the product runs without them
- Clean financials — Stripe exports, P&L, and revenue history they can audit
Red flags that kill deals
These are the patterns that cause micro PE funds to pass, even on otherwise solid acquisitions:
- No written SOPs — if the only documentation is in the founder's head, the deal dies
- Revenue tied to the founder's personal brand — if customers are buying "you" rather than the product, a new operator can't maintain that
- Unresolved technical debt that the seller is aware of but hasn't disclosed
- Customer support entirely handled by the founder with no handoff plan
- Inconsistent revenue — big months followed by zero months without explanation
How to position your app for micro PE
The three-step pre-sale process that micro PE buyers respond to:
Document everything. Write SOPs for every operational task: how support tickets get handled, how the billing system works, how deployments are done, what the monitoring setup looks like. This takes a weekend and immediately signals to buyers that the business can run without you.
Prove the revenue is sticky. Pull three months of churn data. If you don't have it, instrument your subscription system to track it. Buyers will ask, and having the answer ready accelerates the deal.
Stay out of the product for 90 days. This is the hardest one. Stop doing support yourself. Stop being in the customer Slack. Build systems and hand them off to a part-time contractor. Then you can credibly say the business runs without you — because it does.
Active micro PE buyers
The ExitLoop Club directory includes several micro PE funds that are actively acquiring indie apps, including Stellar Cowboy, Calm Capital, Fondo, and dozens more. They're filtered by deal size and asset type so you can find the right fit for your specific app. Browse the full list at /directory.
Ready to exit?
Package the sale.
Start with the small-deal directory or build a quick exit pack before you post the listing.