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The new rules of growth: What SaaS investors are really looking for in 2026
Sara Storm
October 15, 2025
Reflections from the Winning by Design first ever Impact Summit in Ghent. A city I would have never visited if it wasen't for this conference, and god I would have missed out. Probably the most beautiful city I have ever visited. Anyhow...
The best session of the day wasn’t about AI or PLG.
It was the Private equity panel - From the top: Private equity expectations uncovered.
Aurelien Dupuy at PSG , Jennifer Montague at Verdane and Richard Sgro at Insight Partners delivered one of the most grounded, insightful discussions of the entire event. It was amazing.
They laid out what every SaaS founder, CRO, and investor needs to hear heading into 2026:
Growth is being redefined - again.
Everyone’s talking about compounding growth, AI, and PLG like it’s the new holy trinity of GTM.
The message was loud and clear:
Retention > Acquisition.
Automation > Admin.
Time > Everything else.
And yet… if you’re selling complex, high-ticket solutions, you probably left the room wondering:
“Where does that leave us?”
Because while the world seems obsessed with product-led growth, PLG doesn’t fit every business model - especially not when your product can’t “sell itself” and every deal has high ACV, involves human trust, skills, credibility, and time.
So let’s talk about what really landed at the Summit for me - and what didn’t.
1. The investor mindset has shifted - From “Growth at all costs” to “Growth with math”
When Aurelien Dupuy (PSG) said this line, you could feel the temperature in the room change:
“After completing maybe 70 exits in the last ten years across the US and UK, one thing we noticed: EBITDA matters much more in Europe than it does in the US… The implication for all of us in that room is profitable growth past a certain stage matters a lot. Even those that are not yet profitable, we want a clear path to profitability, and certain economics matter a lot.”
The takeaway?
Growth for the sake of growth is officially out.
Dupuy made it clear: the path to profitability is now the actual growth story.
And while the SaaS playbooks of the past decade celebrated scale first, he reminded everyone that unit economics and margins now decide valuation - not headcount, not hype.
2. Net retention is the new ARR
Dupuy doubled down with another reality check:
“When we look at businesses, one is what’s the net retention rate of the business - we like this to be about 100%. What’s interesting is you don’t often hear people talking about cross-sell, expanding the customer base, pricing, and packaging. It’s all about new business. But guess what? New business is much harder than working your existing customer base.”
That line hit every CRO in the audience. Or I hope it did, it really should.
Because for years, teams have poured millions into top-of-funnel - yet the easiest growth still sits in the base.
Cross-sell, expansion, pricing discipline.
That’s where compounding actually begins.
3. Efficiency has become the competitive edge (Jennifer Montague, Verdane)
Verdane’s Jennifer Montague was pragmatic, sharp, and unflinchingly honest:
“We operate on Rule of 40, but in these more challenging times we’ll accept Rule of 30 - looking at your growth margins and your EBITDA margins and how to improve that through capital efficiency… We operate on the Bowtie Model and are big advocates of that. We optimize and support our companies to improve CAC, improve efficiencies, improve payback.”
The “Rule of 30” moment was big for me.
It officially acknowledged that efficiency is the new engine of growth.
Then she dropped what was probably my favorite quote from the entire day:
“If anyone listens to my podcast, ICP does not mean ‘I can pay’. It’s the ideal customer who buys fast, onboards fast, sticks with you, and expands.”
It’s the cleanest definition of go-to-market maturity I’ve heard all year.
A smart ICP doesn’t just close - it compounds.
What the rule of 40 (and rule of 30) really means
The Rule of 40 is an investor benchmark used to measure the balance between growth and profitability in SaaS companies.
It says that your:
Revenue Growth (%) + Profit Margin (%) = 40 or higher.
If you grow 60% YoY but lose 20% margin, you still score 40 - that’s healthy.
The idea is that fast growth can offset short-term losses, and strong margins can offset slower growth.
In today’s market, investors like Verdane are accepting the Rule of 30 instead.
It’s the same principle, just more realistic in a post-boom world: slower growth, higher focus on capital efficiency.
Jennifer put it perfectly:
“We’ll accept Rule of 30 - looking at your growth and EBITDA margins and how to improve that through capital efficiency.”
The message?
You don’t need to chase 40.
You just need to own your 30 - profitably.
4. AI is not a strategy (Richard Sgro, Insight Partners)
Richard Sgro’s contribution was the perfect counterpoint to all the AI hype floating around the Summit.
“Revenue efficiency is huge - what are you doing with the resources that you’ve got? How are you applying capital to generate more revenue?… Understanding consistency in your metrics matters more than perfection. If CAC payback is 30 months and consistent, I can work with that.”
He wasn’t dismissing AI - he was grounding it.
And then came the line that made half the room laugh in painful agreement:
“Companies are subjecting their employees to random acts of AI — memos saying, ‘We’re an AI company now.’ Where we see success is going back to the basics on deal reviews — understanding what’s happening in the pipeline and using AI to improve data hygiene and consistency.”
And my personal favorite:
“If you had a CRM that was 85% accurate, you’d be light-years ahead. AI automation can help you get there - not by slapping AI on bad data, but by improving how data gets in, how sellers actually operate.”
He’s right. AI is only as powerful as your fundamentals.
You can’t automate chaos.
Other sessions that stood out
Dr. Dan Patterson: The holy grail of compounding growth.
He explored how growth can actually lead to decay if it’s not grounded in retention and expansion.
Take away: Growth without retention isn’t growth - it’s churn delayed. We did all know this, right? 🤓
Dan Smith : Unlocking conversational intelligence with SPICED
Dan is a great presence on stage (and in person) and adressed how shared language across sales, marketing, and CS improves conversion rates and alignment.
Take away: Simply unifying how teams talk about customers can move metrics faster than new tools.
Also, I didn't know that he was the inventor of SPICED. Its pretty cool. :D
Dave Boyce: How self-service is reshaping GTM
Dave focused on automation and self-service as scalable models for acquisition and retention.
Take away: Self-service models don’t just reduce cost - they can actually increase lifetime value.
George Storm ⚡ CRO at N.Rich: How to build for high ticket ACV motion.
George hosted an operator session on building compounding growth systems for high-ACV deals. This session was a stand out, because it adressed high ACV. The rest of the conference really didn't.
Take away: Attribution becomes less and less important as we progress into high ACV motions.
The real blind spot
So yes - the Summit nailed where growth is heading.
But it also highlighted what we’re still not addressing:
How do you compound when your deal size kills PLG?
If your product can’t “sell itself,” your growth has to come from somewhere else - credibility, community, and compounding trust.
Because for high-ticket motions, “product-led” isn’t onboarding - it’s credibility-led.
It’s retention, advocacy, and system-led growth.
That’s not as flashy as PLG.
But it’s what actually sustains valuation if you are not able to run PLG.
So here’s the question the Summit left me thinking about:
How do we design compounding growth systems for high-ACV models - where sales cycles are long, trust drives deals, and no one’s “trying” the product before they buy?
That’s the playbook I want to see written in 2026.
Final thought
Dupuy calls it growth with math.
Montague reframes it as optimizing the system, not just the sale.
Sgro reminds us that AI only scales what works.
And George? He showed how to design it for high ACV motions.
Because at the end of the day:
PLG is easy when your product sells itself.
It’s a different game entirely when you have to.
Kbye 😎
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