Founders spend years looking at their companies from the inside.
They know the product, the customers, the team, the revenue and the problems that still need fixing. But when an investor or potential acquirer looks at the same company, the questions can be very different.
How defensible is the business? How durable is its growth? What happens to the economics as the market changes? Can the leadership team scale? And perhaps most importantly, what could this company become under new ownership?
Those questions are becoming increasingly important as artificial intelligence reshapes the technology market.
For software companies in particular, investors and acquirers are reassessing everything from competitive advantage and pricing power to capital requirements and long-term defensibility. A company that looks attractive today also has to demonstrate why its value will continue to compound tomorrow.
That is the conversation coming to Toronto on October 15 at TechExit.io Toronto, where founders, investors, private equity leaders and M&A professionals will gather at MaRS Discovery District to examine what creates value in today’s technology market.
Rather than treating an exit as something founders think about only when they receive an offer, the conference is focused on the decisions that shape company value long before a transaction begins.
The Exit Market Has Changed
For much of the technology boom, growth was often the dominant metric.
Today, the conversation is more complicated.
AI has introduced new questions about software economics and competitive advantage. Investors are paying closer attention to capital efficiency, sustainable unit economics and the durability of recurring revenue. Acquirers are increasingly selective about which companies deserve premium valuations.
That creates a different challenge for founders.
Building a valuable company is no longer simply about reaching a certain revenue milestone or attracting a large number of customers. Founders increasingly need to understand how investors and buyers evaluate the underlying business.
TechExit.io Toronto is designed around that perspective.
The 2026 program brings together people who have experienced technology transactions from multiple sides, including founders who have built and sold major Canadian technology companies, investors deploying capital, private equity executives, corporate development leaders and advisors involved in M&A.
The result is less a conversation about selling a company and more a conversation about building one that gives its founders options.
Looking Beyond the AI Hype
Michael Hyatt will open the conference with a keynote titled “Beyond the Hype: The New Rules of the Tech Exit in an AI-Obsessed Market.”
Hyatt brings a perspective shaped by both operating and investing. He is Executive Chairman of DataStealth and co-founded BlueCat, which was acquired by Madison Dearborn Partners.
The question at the centre of his session is increasingly relevant for founders outside the handful of companies attracting enormous AI valuations.
If simply being a profitable technology company is no longer enough to command exceptional value, what does create a premium?
For founders, that question goes beyond AI itself. It gets to the fundamentals of what makes a business difficult to replace, attractive to buyers and capable of producing value over time.
Where Is the Capital Market Heading?
Hyatt will also moderate “State of the Capital Markets,” bringing together a group of investors and capital-market leaders to examine where valuations and buyer appetite have landed in 2026.
Joining him will be:
Brent Holliday, Founder & CEO, Garibaldi Capital Advisors
Lisa Melchior, Founder & Managing Partner, Vertu Capital
John Ruffolo, Founder & Managing Partner, Maverix Private Equity
Anush Sachdeva, Senior Director, Strategy & Investments, RBCx
The discussion will look at where capital is moving, which businesses are commanding a premium and how founders should think about their balance sheets heading into 2027.
It will also expand the conversation beyond the traditional choice between raising money and selling the company.
Debt, secondaries and other paths to liquidity are increasingly part of the founder’s toolkit, particularly for companies that want to create liquidity without giving up control prematurely.
Your Leverage Is Built Before the Deal
One of the less obvious lessons of an exit is that negotiating power often has little to do with the negotiation itself.
By the time an offer arrives, many of the factors that determine a founder’s leverage have already been established.
That is the focus of “Negotiating from Strength: Creating Leverage Before the Process Begins.”
The panel will be moderated by Jeffrey Bennett, Senior Director, Technology & Innovation Banking at National Bank, with:
Andrew McLeod, Co-Founder & CEO, Certn
Zafer Qureshi, CEO, Alam Group
Anish Singla, President & Co-Founder, Tequity
The conversation will explore what founders can do before a financing or acquisition process begins to put themselves in a stronger position.
That includes creating competition among potential buyers, improving the business before going to market and understanding the motivations of the people sitting across the table.
The broader lesson is straightforward: negotiating strength is rarely something a founder can switch on when an offer arrives. It is built through years of decisions about the company.
How Buyers Actually Think
Founders naturally focus on the price attached to an acquisition.
Buyers have another calculation.
They are asking what they can do with the company once they own it.
That is the premise behind “The Buyer’s Playbook: How Acquirers Create Value,” moderated by Christen Leinwand (Daniels), Head of Portfolio Value Creation & Corporate Development at Georgian.
The panel includes:
Jeff Duke, Managing Partner, Vibanc
Simon Foster, Vice Chair & Partner, Capital Canada Limited
Neil Grunberg, Co-Founder & Managing Partner, Storytime Capital
JD Saint-Martin, Managing Partner, Boreal Ventures
For buyers, an acquisition can be about much more than the company’s existing revenue.
They may be looking at synergies, technology, distribution, talent, customers or opportunities to accelerate growth. They also have to determine whether the leadership team can execute after the transaction and whether the potential upside justifies the price.
Understanding that calculation can give founders a different way of thinking about their own companies.
The question becomes not only, “What is my company worth today?”
It is also, “What could someone else do with this company?”
The Part of an Exit Nobody Sees
The acquisition announcement is often the most visible moment of a transaction.
The months and years that follow are much less public.
That is the focus of “The Elephant in the Room: Life After the Deal,” moderated by Chad Bayne, Partner, Emerging and High Growth Companies at Osler.
The session features two founders whose post-acquisition experiences took very different paths.
Kazi Ahmed, Co-Founder & CEO of Carbon6, sold the company to SPS Commerce for $305 million CAD before later engineering a buy-back of the business.
Bryn Jones, Co-Founder & CEO of PartnerStack, sold the company to AppDirect and stayed on to continue building within the larger organization.
Their experiences highlight an important part of the exit conversation that is often missing from founder discussions.
Closing the deal does not necessarily mean the journey is over.
For some founders, the acquisition creates an opportunity to build at a much larger scale. For others, it can lead to a realization that the next chapter needs to look completely different.
Understanding what happens after the transaction can therefore be just as important as understanding how to get one done.
A Room Full of Exit Experience
The broader speaker lineup reflects the conference’s focus on bringing different sides of the technology transaction together.
Among the speakers to watch are:
Allen Lau, Co-Founder & Operating Partner, Two Small Fish Ventures; Co-Founder, Wattpad, acquired by Naver Corp. for C$754 million
Ali Asaria, 2026 Conference Chair; Co-Founder, Transformer Lab; Founder, Well.ca, acquired by McKesson Canada
Michael Hyatt, Executive Chairman, DataStealth.io; Co-Founder, BlueCat, acquired by Madison Dearborn Partners
Kazi Ahmed, Co-Founder & CEO, Carbon6, acquired by SPS Commerce for $305 million CAD
Bryn Jones, Co-Founder & CEO, PartnerStack, acquired by AppDirect
Andrew McLeod, Co-Founder & CEO, Certn
John Ruffolo, Founder & Managing Partner, Maverix Private Equity
Talia Abramowitz, Managing Partner, Deloitte Ventures
Together, the lineup represents several different stages of the technology company lifecycle.
There are founders who have built companies from the ground up, executives who have navigated acquisitions, investors evaluating businesses and professionals helping companies prepare for transactions.
That diversity may be the most valuable part of the conference for founders.
An exit is rarely viewed from only one perspective.
Building for Optionality
For founders, the most useful takeaway from the exit conversation may have little to do with actually selling.
Understanding what investors and buyers value can influence how a company is built today.
It can shape decisions around recurring revenue, customer concentration, margins, technology, leadership, intellectual property and capital structure. It can influence whether a founder chooses to raise another round, take on debt, pursue a secondary or remain independent.
In other words, exit readiness is not necessarily about preparing to leave.
It is about creating options.
That becomes particularly relevant in a market where technology is changing quickly and the assumptions that supported company valuations only a few years ago are being tested.
The founders who understand how the other side of the table thinks may have a better chance of making decisions that preserve those options.
TechExit.io Toronto Comes to MaRS
TechExit.io Toronto takes place October 15, 2026, at MaRS Discovery District in Toronto.
The conference will bring together founders, investors, private equity leaders, acquirers and M&A advisors for a day focused on technology company value, capital markets, transactions and what happens after the deal.
For founders, the central question is not simply whether someone would buy their company.
It is whether they are building a company that sophisticated investors and buyers will understand, value and compete for.
That distinction could matter more than ever in 2026.
Early Bird pricing ends September 17.
Founders Press readers can use exclusive code FOUNDERS20 for 20% off their pass.
TechExit.io Toronto
October 15, 2026
MaRS Discovery District, Toronto
Meet the founders, investors and acquirers who understand what creates value from both sides of the table.