Esteemed colleagues, board members, and strategic partners of Xyra Group,

In our continuing effort to stay ahead of the acquisition curve, we present an unflinching wrap-up of the most consequential news from our priority verticals in the past week — and what it means for our thesis of acquiring high-margin, cash-flow-strong businesses.

1. E-commerce: Digital Growth & Margin Inflection

• Tapestry Inc. — owner of Coach and Kate Spade — reported a 13.1 % year-on-year net sales increase in Q1 (ending Sep. 27), helped by 19 % growth in China and strong digital-first performance.

• The Revolve Group, Inc. recorded a 4.4 % sales increase and emphasised its use of AI within operations amid tariff headwinds.
  Implication for us: Digital channel mix continues to shift rapidly. For acquisition targets, we must prioritise DTC or online-first brands with geographic expansion (especially China/Asia) and internal tech/ad-stack sophistication. Brands relying purely on offline or legacy retail are at greater risk of margin squeeze.

2. SaaS & Digital Platforms: Valuation Dislocation + AI Disruption

• A recent report by RBC Capital Markets highlighted that legacy SaaS companies are being heavily disrupted by AI advances, depressing valuations and creating “rare opportunities for opportunistic buyers.”

• Separately, quarterly data shows YTD SaaS M&A deal count is on pace for 2,500+ transactions in 2025, with average revenue multiples holding near ~5.4× and a strong rebound in public-market sentiment.
  Implication for us: A two-pronged signal emerges: (a) high-quality SaaS firms with defensible AI IP and sticky ARR are premium targets; (b) commoditised or infrastructure-heavy SaaS businesses may face structural headwinds and are potential “value traps.” Within our screening unit, we must include an “AI resilience” filter and multiple exit scenarios for SaaS deals.

3. Digital Marketing / MarTech: Product Innovation Surge

• Amplitude Analytics released AI-Feedback, a customer-feedback engine powered by a proprietary LLM that turns raw user input into prioritized actionable insights — signalling the customer-data-stack pivot in MarTech.
  Implication for us: When assessing digital marketing tech or agency-adjacent platforms as bolt-ons, we must demand evidence of embedded AI, defensible data moats, and monetisation beyond one-off services (i.e., recurring revenue, platform models). Service-heavy agencies without scalable tech are now lower priority.

4. Summary & Strategic Takeaways

• Themes emerging: Digital-first growth, AI-enabled value creation, consolidation of SaaS, margin pull-through in e-commerce.

• For Xyra Group’s acquisition strategy, our filters gain urgency:

  • Target businesses must demonstrate digital channel dominance, global scalability, and tech-enabled operations.

  • Must avoid over-capex, “arms-race” infrastructure dependencies, and narrow geographies with high retail-channel risk.

  • Bolt-ons in SaaS and MarTech must show recurring revenue, strong retention, embedded AI or data-moats, and clear paths to margin expansion.

• Operational check: Within our deal pipeline this week, we will deprioritise any target with >40 % dependency on legacy retail foot traffic or >30 % capex growth without margin improvement.

Our market is moving fast. Strategic clarity, execution discipline, and margin-obsessed diligence will differentiate winners from laggards. At Xyra Group, we are not following waves — we are making waves of our own.