AvePoint eyes US$100 million in acquisitions to fast-track US$1 billion revenue target

[SINGAPORE] Armed with a US$481 million war chest, data protection firm AvePoint is eyeing deals worth more than US$100 million as it seeks to accelerate its path towards US$1 billion in annual recurring revenue (ARR) by 2029.

While the Nasdaq and Singapore Exchange (SGX) mainboard-listed firm has primarily relied on organic growth for years, chief executive officer Jiang Tianyi signalled the company’s shift towards larger, more strategic acquisitions.

“We are looking at assets that can help us expand our platform, to be more ‘sticky’,” he told The Business Times in an interview. Since its inception in 2001, the company has made six acquisitions, all of which were below US$20 million in value.

But Dr Jiang said that future deals could be in the “several hundred million dollars” range, marking a step-up in scale as part of efforts to improve customer retention.

He noted that the company’s US$1 billion ARR goal was modelled solely on organic growth, but “meaningful” and “synergistic” acquisitions could accelerate that trajectory. The company’s ARR stood at US$416.8 million at the end of FY2025.

“There are very interesting assets that allow us to become even bigger as a platform because we do see platform consolidation,” he said, adding that customers prefer working with fewer enterprise application platforms.

Dr Jiang added that the company is “always actively looking” for potential acquisitions, without committing to a specific timeline.

AvePoint, which obtained a secondary listing on SGX in September last year, provides cloud data protection software for enterprises, with Singapore as its Asia headquarters and international research and development hub.

The company’s growth push comes as it works to improve customer retention metrics.

AvePoint’s gross retention rate (GRR) – a measure of its ability to retain existing customer revenue year over year – fell to 88 per cent in Q4 FY2025, falling short of its 90 per cent target.

In the company’s earnings call in February, Dr Jiang attributed the GRR dip to migration-related projects and offering of lower-priced products, noting that GRR would have hit 90 per cent excluding these factors.

Expanding on human capital

To drive growth, AvePoint is looking to expand its 3,000-strong headcount, defying a broader sector-wide trend of tech layoffs tied to artificial intelligence (AI).

However, Dr Jiang dismissed such AI-driven job cuts as a “convenient excuse”.

“Instead of cutting 40 per cent of your employees, if you can use AI with your existing employees and go after 40 per cent more growth... everyone would choose growth,” he said.

“We pair AI with good people so that we are more productive,” he added, noting that the company “needs more people” to engage clients as it takes on new projects.

Stock buybacks on the table

AvePoint is also keeping share buybacks on the table as part of its capital allocation strategy.

In the first two months of the year, AvePoint repurchased 2.8 million shares for US$33.5 million. The company repurchased 3.4 million shares for about US$50 million in 2025.

“Share buybacks remain a key pillar of our capital allocation philosophy, and we intend to remain active and opportunistic in the open market,” Jim Caci, AvePoint’s chief financial officer, said during the earnings call in February.

Dr Jiang noted that general investors, who are not tech insiders, struggle to identify winners and losers in the AI transition. Thus, enterprise software stocks, along with the broader market, are suffering from falling share prices in recent months – a trend which he labelled as “unfair”.

The data protection company’s share price has fallen more than 20 per cent this year, in line with a wider tech sector pullback.

Still, Dr Jiang said, the company will balance capital returns with investments in growth.

“These are uncertain times, so we’re very focused on continued profitable growth,” he said.