Sales now average at about 1,500, and nearly 2,000 pieces have been sold to date, with clients ranging from young couples and students to wealthy collectors and corporate buyers.

So, in an era where corporate buyers of software increasingly prefer to deal with fewer suppliers, the pressure for the big to swallow the small remains strong.

The absence of corporate buyers was common across all specialist sectors, with only 5 per cent of the individual businesses we sold last year moving into corporate ownership.

Corporate buyers are also active.

Investment bankers also suggest that further competition to private equity buyers may come increasingly from corporate buyers able to use cheap debt to acquire rivals for strategic purposes.