7 Exits in 3 Moves:

The Brand Strategy That Helped Our Clients Get Acquired by Cisco, eBay, and Blackstone

We didn’t set out to specialize in pre-acquisition branding. But seven successful exits later, we’ve learned what makes a company magnetic to buyers. We work with a wide range of companies and brands, but DarkSquare specializes in understanding complex or abstract products and services, often in the tech sector, and aligning product story, market promise, and proof so acquirers can instantly see the fit. When your value is crystal clear, diligence moves faster, synergy feels obvious, and the “why us” answers itself.

That isn’t just intuition. Research shows that strong, coherent brands consistently outperform in acquisition scenarios. McKinsey found that companies with consistent brand narratives and clear value communication earn up to 20% higher acquisition multiples, because they communicate strategic fit long before a deal begins [1]. Deloitte reports that leadership misalignment on brand and purpose is among the top five factors delaying or derailing M&A integrations, underscoring the value of unified storytelling [2]. And according to Harvard Business Review, organizations that anchor around a shared purpose achieve “2–3× stronger employee advocacy and brand trust,” both key signals to investors and acquirers [3].

Our team has helped brands get acquired by Cisco, eBay, NICE, Demandbase, and companies in Blackstone’s portfolio (via Sphera). Different markets, different moments—but the same underlying strength: helping leadership align around who they truly are.

At DarkSquare, we specialize in unifying teams and uncovering the core truth of their brand—the one thing everyone can believe in, from executives and employees to customers, partners, and potential buyers. Using Constellations, our proprietary testing platform, we validate brand aesthetics and messaging with real audiences to learn which values resonate and which ideas inspire confidence.

 

The Pattern We Noticed Across Every Exit

After seven acquisitions across different industries, we started noticing the same throughline: companies that get acquired aren’t just well-designed,  they’re well-aligned.

Alignment brings clarity. When leadership, product, and marketing are genuinely on the same page about what the company stands for, everything sharpens, the story gets clearer, the brand gets simpler, and the value becomes easier to see. Buyers pick up on that instantly. You can feel it in how the team talks about their product and how the brand expresses it. There’s no translation needed and no confusion as they move from one department to the next. They’re all telling the same story and they’re all speaking the same language.

Then there’s design. High-quality design and thoughtful execution don’t just make a company look good, they signal competence. When a brand looks cohesive, intentional, and mature, it tells investors and buyers that the same care probably exists inside the organization. It feels like a company that’s serious about itself, that invests in clarity and precision, and that knows how to execute at every level. Research supports this perception: companies that invest consistently in design outperform their peers by as much as 32% in revenue growth and 56% in total shareholder return [4].

The opposite is just as powerful. We’ve seen great products struggle to sell because their brand and design didn’t match the caliber of their work. Poor design sends a quiet but crystal-clear message that things inside might be disorganized, underfunded, or simply not ready for scale. It erodes confidence long before diligence ever starts. Studies show that first impressions formed from visual and brand cues influence perceived trustworthiness and competence within seconds — a bias that carries directly into investor and buyer evaluations [5].

What we’ve learned is simple: alignment creates clarity, and clarity paired with craft builds trust. When a company knows exactly who it is, and shows it with intention and consistency, it stops having to convince anyone. Buyers, investors, and partners can already see the fit.

 

Case Snapshots: 7 Brands, 7 Outcomes

Across these case studies from our portfolio, we’ve seen how alignment and clarity translate directly into market momentum, and ultimately, buyer confidence. Each story is different, but the pattern is unmistakable: when the brand finally reflects the company’s true value, opportunity follows.

Viptela → Cisco (2017, ~$610M)

We helped Viptela simplify and humanize its enterprise networking story, streamlining complex SD-WAN messaging so even non-technical audiences could understand while not loosing the elegance of the solution. The result: a brand that fit seamlessly into Cisco’s enterprise narrative. Updating key assets (website, sales decks, thought leadership) signaled professionalism and readiness at Cisco’s level.
Press source: Cisco completes acquisition of Viptela – Cisco Newsroom

InsideView → Demandbase (2021)

From a modest 10-page site to a sprawling 2,000+ page content ecosystem: we matured InsideView’s brand at each growth stage. Our work supported their funding rounds and final positioning, clarifying market identity and strengthening visual authority. This made the Demandbase acquisition not a surprise, but a logical next step.
Press source: Demandbase acquires InsideView and DemandMatrixx – Demandbase

Satmetrix → NICE (2017)

Satmetrix’s evolution demanded multiple rebrands at key stages; we helped unify their products and identity, moving the brand toward enterprise-grade experience intelligence. After acquisition, NICE engaged us to integrate and rebrand several of their key product lines, including positioning for AI/Analytics launches.
Press source: NICE acquires Satmetrix https://mergr.com/transaction/nice-acquires-satmetrix 

SupplyShift → Sphera (2024, Blackstone portfolio)

We led an ESG-centered rebrand that gave SupplyShift a sharper, more authoritative B2B presence. Internally misalignment and silos made it challenging, but by applying disciplined alignment and execution, we delivered a cohesive brand and site. Sphera acquired them just months after launch, testimony to strong optics and our proven process.
Press source: Sphera acquires SupplyShift – Demand Gen Report

ICIX → Riskonnect (2021, Thoma Bravo)

ICIX’s story was fragmented, layered by compliance jargon. We modernized their identity and messaging to reposition them as an enterprise-level risk & ESG platform. The refreshed brand raised their perception from niche compliance tool to credible risk-management partner at acquisition time.
Press source: Riskonnect acquires ICIX (company site)

SalesPredict → eBay (2016, ~$40M est.)

Our relationship began with product design, but morphed into full-brand alignment, sales, marketing, narrative, security handoff. We translated advanced predictive analytics into human-centered language and our development team propped up technical handoff systems that smoothed integration.
Press source: eBay Completes the Acquisition of SalesPredict – eBay

Linkage Design → Mechdyne (2022)

We worked with Linkage early, helped them clarify their engineering value, build content infrastructure (e.g. LMS), and unify brand messaging. The rebrand positioned them for a clean fit with Mechdyne’s immersive / design-tech portfolio, making acquisition logical and intuitive.
Press source: Mechdyne / Linkage acquisition mention (company site)

 

What We Learned About Brand Readiness for Acquisition

After more than a decade helping companies grow and get acquired, we’ve learned that “brand readiness” isn’t just about marketing polish,  it’s about strategic coherence. A brand whose leadership  knows who it is, proves it through action, and expresses it consistently becomes far easier to buy, invest in, or integrate.

Here’s what consistently matters most:

1. Alignment first.

Make time to get your leadership team, and representation from every part of the company, into the same room. Talk through the fundamentals: Who’s your ideal customer? What partnerships matter most? What’s the two-year roadmap, and what’s standing in the way? At DarkSquare, we call this our Square One exercise. Everyone writes their perspective down, compares notes, and debates until they agree 100%. It’s uncomfortable, it takes time, and it’s essential. Alignment doesn’t happen by accident, it’s designed.

2. Find that one thing.

Every brand has a human center of gravity, the value that everyone inside and outside the company can believe in. Maybe it’s efficiency. Maybe it’s innovation. But whatever it is, it has to be felt, not just said. One of our favorite frameworks comes from The Hero and the Outlaw by Carol Pearson and Margaret Mark, which translates brand archetypes into actionable traits that help teams articulate who they really are. When that internal truth becomes external expression, everything clicks.

3. Hire a real design and development team.

Not just a vendor, a partner who understands your product, your people, and your business goals. They should be able to translate strategy into visuals, words, and functionality that all tell the same story. They need to know how to work across departments, speak fluently with your technical and marketing leads, and ensure that every detail, from typography to user flow, communicates professionalism and confidence.
Great design doesn’t just look good; it signals competence. Research from McKinsey shows that design-led organizations outperform their peers by up to 32% in revenue growth and 56% in shareholder return  [6].

 

Simplify your narrative and build credibility.

Buyers want to see themselves in your story. Complexity kills momentum. When your positioning is simple, human, and connected to real business outcomes, it accelerates understanding and due diligence. Bain & Company found that companies with clear, consistent brand narratives close deals 23% faster on average than those with fragmented messaging [7].

At the same time, your digital ecosystem, your website, case studies, thought leadership, and data hygiene, speaks volumes before you ever get in the room. McKinsey estimates that 70% of a B2B buyer’s journey happens digitally before first contact [8]. A clean, credible, and confident digital presence tells acquirers that your company is organized, scalable, and ready to grow.

Clarity and craft make you buyable. When a company looks aligned on the outside, it’s usually aligned on the inside, and that’s what every buyer is hoping to find. 

The Next Move for DarkSquare

Looking ahead, our focus is right where it’s always been: helping complex companies tell simple, human stories that move markets. We’re continuing to work with automation, AI, and enterprise SaaS brands that are reshaping their industries, often at the same inflection point we’ve seen so many times before: scaling fast, clarifying their identity, and becoming visible to the right buyers.

To support that mission, we’ve developed Constellations, our own audience-testing and brand validation platform. Built by our team at DarkSquare, Constellations lets us test aesthetic and messaging concepts with real audiences in real time, helping leadership teams make creative decisions backed by data. It’s how we bridge the gap between intuition and proof, ensuring that the brands we build don’t just look right,  they work and we have confirmation they work from the people who interact with them and matter most.

The next wave of brand readiness will be even more data-informed and evidence-driven. Our goal is to give founders and leadership teams the clarity and confidence they need to act decisively, whether that means growing independently, attracting investment, or preparing for acquisition.

We’ve learned that when a company truly understands itself, when alignment and clarity meet great execution, growth follows naturally. Sometimes that leads to investment, sometimes to acquisition, and sometimes to entirely new chapters.

If your growth strategy might end in acquisition, or you want it to, let’s talk about brand readiness.

Still Considering Your First Move?

If you’re not ready to talk just yet, start with Square One, our Brand Sync Workbook.
It’s the foundation of the alignment exercise we use to kick off every rebrand — helping teams find clarity, surface points of disagreement, and get everyone moving in the same direction.
Putting all the pieces on the board is the first step.