AI, Value Creation, and the PE Playbook in B2B Software with Anna Amadio

A Market Under Pressure, and a PE Firm Built for It

With SaaS valuations and growth multiples under real pressure in early 2026, the question of how private equity creates value in B2B software has rarely been more consequential. The days of multiple expansion as a primary return driver are over. What remains is operational conviction, sector depth, and a genuine ability to work alongside management.

In this new episode of our Insights from Tech Leaders series, Julia Reulet sits down with Anna Amadio, Director of Value Creation at Triple PE, to explore how a hands-on mid-market firm is navigating AI adoption, post-merger integration, and portfolio growth across two of the most structurally resilient segments in European software: governance, risk and compliance, and financial data and information services.

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Triple PE: a thesis built on sector depth and operating proximity

Founded in 2023, Triple has moved quickly. In less than three years, the firm has built a portfolio of five platforms and eleven deals, including bolt-ons, across the UK and Nordics, with over €500M in AUM. The pace is deliberate rather than opportunistic. Triple focuses tightly on B2B software and data and information services businesses exhibiting strong top-line growth, high profitability, and what Anna describes as critical infrastructure characteristics: non-discretionary, deeply embedded, and positioned in markets with structural regulatory tailwinds.

The two anchor segments are GRC software and financial data and information services. Both share a common profile: sticky, compliance-driven demand, high switching costs, and proprietary data assets that are difficult to replicate. Within those segments, Triple's edge lies not just in what it buys, but how it operates once it does.

Value creation as a co-pilot, not an overlay

The most distinctive element of Triple's model is the role of its value creation team. Where most mid-market PE firms deploy operating resources reactively, after investment and often in response to underperformance, Triple embeds value creation from the earliest stages of diligence.

Anna describes a model where value creation and investment are genuinely co-equal. The team participates in deal assessment, builds the value creation thesis alongside the investment case, and is aligned with management before the ink dries. That pre-investment alignment matters, because the hardest part of post-acquisition execution is not the plan itself, but the buy-in.

"If you don't have that alignment, it's really hard then to deliver on the value creation and being in sync with the management."

The eight-lever value creation framework Triple applies across its portfolio, covering pricing, go-to-market, talent, partnerships, and M&A, is deliberately portable. The underlying model is broadly consistent whether the company is a GRC platform or a financial benchmarking business, though the knowledge and network required to execute it differ. Triple's team, with deep roots in companies like Refinitiv, LSEG, and Deutsche Börse, brings direct operator credibility to both.

SmartSearch and Credas: sequencing M&A with organic conviction

Triple's first investment was SmartSearch, the leading UK provider of AML and KYC software for professional services, including real estate, legal, and accounting firms. Eighteen months in, SmartSearch acquired Credas Technologies for £78M, expanding into property-focused identity verification.

The acquisition was not rushed. Triple spent the first year building organic momentum: pricing reviews, go-to-market refinement, scanning the landscape. The decision to move on Credas came from a clear read on complementarity rather than scale for its own sake. Credas brought distinct product capabilities and a strong foothold in the property market, while the combined entity could expand partnerships and consolidate the UK AML/KYC space from a position of strength.

The post-merger integration has followed a structured PMI playbook: leadership clarity first, integration planning second, execution third. Anna is direct about where the risk lies.

"The first three months, it's making sure that you start to have that culture and communication. Being as transparent as possible with the companies in terms of what is the plan, what are the key milestones, making sure that people feel part of the journey."

Cerevo: building a Nordic GRC leader from three distinct companies

The integration challenge at SmartSearch was one-to-one. At Cerevo, it was one-to-three. Triple combined RISMA, ComplyCloud, and Wire Relations, three GRC platforms with distinct cultures, product philosophies, and customer bases, into a single brand targeting GDPR and information security compliance across the Nordic region.

The mechanics of the integration were planned carefully: a new combined brand launched between December and January, a shared office to accelerate cultural convergence, and a unified go-to-market structure built under Cerevo's leadership. The harder work was human.

What Anna describes is a common pattern in complex PMIs: the temptation to prioritize product milestones before cultural ones. Triple's approach inverts that instinct. Communication and transparency in the first ninety days are treated as execution deliverables, not soft considerations. The result, according to Anna, was an energy that would have been difficult to manufacture through process alone.

Cerevo's ambition is to become the category leader in GRC software for GDPR and InfoSec in the Nordics, building on the strongest capabilities each of the three founding platforms brought to the table.

AI in regulated markets: augmentation, not substitution

Across all of Triple's portfolio companies, AI is a first-order strategic priority. The framing, however, is consistent and deliberate: AI as an augmentation layer rather than a replacement for the specialized knowledge that makes these businesses valuable.

In GRC and compliance software, the stakes are high. Regulators require human accountability. Customers, whether law firms relying on AML tools or enterprises managing GDPR obligations, need to trust that AI is enhancing their compliance posture, not creating new exposure. A black-box approach would undermine the very proposition these businesses are built on.

Triple's response is to embed AI in ways that empower rather than displace: smarter search, automated contract digitization, CRM efficiency, and product roadmap features developed in close partnership with clients. The goal is to surface AI value to customers while preserving the trust relationship that gives the data its authority.

"This concept that we have of AI as our documentation layer, not a complete substitute for the value add of the companies, is really how we think about framing it across our companies."

For GRC platforms specifically, Anna notes that the regulatory environment itself creates a structural constraint on how fast AI can be embedded at the decisional level. Compliance officers and legal teams need explainability. The augmentation model is not a compromise; it is the only model that works in these markets.

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The data moat question: does AI strengthen or erode it?

Triple's more recent investments, Legal Benchmarking Group, Derivia, and Euromoney, sit in financial data and information services, where the strategic question around AI is different. These businesses are built on proprietary data: gathered through unique client relationships, curated by specialist teams, and used to make decisions with real financial and regulatory consequences.

The concern raised by some investors is that generative AI could commoditize what was previously hard to source. Anna's view is more nuanced. The moat for businesses like Derivia, which covers opaque structured products and derivatives markets, lies not in the volume of data but in how it is sourced, validated, and delivered. Customers in these markets are not looking for scraped aggregations. They are paying for trust, precision, and a brand they can defend internally if a decision is challenged.

"Clients need to have a strong trust in the data that is provided and that is related to the brand strength, but we don't want to dilute that with any AI scraping."

AI, in this context, accelerates internal processes, improves data reconciliation, and shortens time to market for new product features. The uniqueness of the underlying data is not at risk; if anything, the ability to deploy AI on top of genuinely proprietary data sets becomes a competitive differentiator.

What Triple asks management teams on AI, and in what order

For Triple's newer investments, AI is assessed during diligence rather than after. By the time a deal closes, the disruption question needs to be settled. What follows is a structured conversation about moving from implicit to explicit: surfacing what the company is already doing with AI, communicating it to clients, identifying the highest-return efficiency use cases, and building a product roadmap with board-level sign-off.

The sequencing matters. Anna describes a three-stage approach: efficiency use cases first, where ROI is clearest and payback is fastest; product AI second, developed in close partnership with clients to manage expectations and appetite; and a board-approved innovation roadmap third, with a clear framework for testing, cost, and return assessment.

This is PE discipline applied to a technology agenda: prioritizing the things that move the needle within the investment horizon, rather than building for a future the company may not be positioned to monetize.

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What a CEO actually experiences working with Triple

For executives at B2B software companies considering a partnership with Triple, Anna's framing is straightforward. The incentives are aligned. Management and the PE team are in the same boat, with the same goal. The value creation team is not an auditor or an oversight function; it is a resource that releases bandwidth on the things that management should not have to carry alone, whether that is pricing analysis, M&A origination, or talent acquisition.

The differentiator, as Anna summarizes it, is a partnership that begins before the deal closes and is built on shared conviction about what will actually move the needle.

"We always do it in a way that it's not top-down in the sense that we force the strategy, but it's partnership. We make sure that we align on the strategy before, and then we are really clear on what are the things that we support a bit more."

About the series

This interview is part of our Insights from Tech Leaders series, where we speak with leading operators and industry experts across global software markets.

At Dedale Intelligence, we support investors and corporates in navigating complex technology markets and building conviction in fast-evolving environments.

About Triple PE

Triple is a mid-market private equity firm focused on B2B software and data and information services businesses across the UK and Nordics. Founded in 2023, Triple has built a portfolio of five platforms and eleven deals, including bolt-ons, with over €500M in AUM. Triple's differentiated approach combines deep sector expertise with a hands-on value creation team involved from the earliest stages of each investment, with a focus on GRC software and financial data and information services.

For more information, visit: www.triple.pe