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Steve Woods joined Inovia Capital as Partner and CTO in 2021 and has worked in software development, research and technical leadership for more than 30 years. As co-founder of three software and services companies based in the USA (Quack.com, Kinitos and NeoEdge Networks), he built strong, high-performing teams of product and technical experts based in both Silicon Valley and the Waterloo-Toronto tech corridor.

Our friends at Software Equity Group have shared their M&A Public Market Report from Q1. As we round the bend into Q2, here are their researched findings from Q1. The start of 2026 has brought a complicated backdrop, with trade friction, energy and commodity volatility, global conflict, policy uncertainty, and growing debate around AI risk weighing on sentiment.

Venkat Ramakrishnan is President and Chief Operating Officer of NeuBird AI, creator of the leading Production Operations Agent. He has decades of experience building and scaling enterprise technology companies from startup to exit. Before joining NeuBird AI, Venkat served as Vice President and General Manager of the Cloud Native Business Unit at Pure Storage. He was also part of the early team at Portworx, which was acquired by Pure Storage.

Billy Milam is CEO of Consulting Solutions, a nationally recognized leader in technology workforce and consulting services with key practice areas in Digital Transformation, ERP, Cloud and Data, Cybersecurity, AI and Advanced Analytics, and Energy and Engineering.

Timothy State is the founder and CEO of Altius, where he focuses on helping organizations improve performance through better health and well-being. He has spent more than two decades working in and around workplace health, leadership, and organizational effectiveness. His work often sits at the intersection of business strategy and employee well-being, with a focus on practical outcomes rather than theory alone.

Leader in hybrid, full-stack infrastructure observability, Paul has career expertise in scaling high-growth businesses fuels Virtana’s mission to advance observability for AI-powered and hybrid IT environments, establishing the company as a trusted partner to Global 2000 enterprises.

Kamesh Pemmaraju is the Founder and Managing Partner of OptimaGTM, a GTM systems consulting firm, focused on a specific and urgent problem: B2B and AI startups unable to reach predictable growth/scale after  seeing some initial market traction.

Jim LaRoe is Symphion’s dynamic CEO with a special combination of skills, experience and insight that has driven Symphion’s success since inception to the world’s leader in print fleet cyber security. Symphion’s focus has been on continual innovation, seamless delivery, affordability of its solutions and a dedication to excellence in customer service. In today’s interview, Jim discusses the hidden risks in print fleets and why they matter for enterprise security.

Our friends at Allied Advisers have published this report to explore why the “SaaSpocalypse” narrative may be overstated and how SaaS and AI can coexist to create value for vendors, customers, and investors. In summary, the SaaS industry is undergoing its most significant transformation in a decade. In early February 2026, over $285 billion in software market value was wiped out. The launch of Claude Cowork intensified concerns that agentic AI could undermine traditional SaaS models.

Our friends at Software Equity Group have pulled together their Annual SaaS Report, and as always, their tone is positive, their outlook is assertive and we appreciate all the insights they have to offer. Here are five highlights from their report: 1.Aggregate software M&A activity reached a historic peak in 2025 with 4,629 transactions announced, representing 26.4% YoY growth and surpassing the prior 2022 peak by roughly 1,000 deals.