New ask Hacker News story: Ask HN: Is GDPR hurting European tech valuations and acquisitions?

Ask HN: Is GDPR hurting European tech valuations and acquisitions?
9 by seibelj | 12 comments on Hacker News.
I heard a concerning anecdote from a friend. He (American) was trying to make a relatively small acquisition of a European SaaS business. 6 figure deal for a company with ~100k MATU. They were running out of cash and needed to be acquired. Ultimately the deal did not go through because of GDPR. I am fuzzy on the exact details, but he claimed that per GDPR requirements, every single customer would have to sign back up for the service and they could not be shifted over to the new company without explicitly opting in. So the MATU would be zero until they re-acquired the users. So the deal did not go through and the company shut down. Has anyone else noticed issues with European valuations and M&A because of GDPR?

No comments