Available data from 2022–2024 show that private equity dealmaking evolved exactly in the way Friedberg described.

1. Bolt‑ons/add‑ons became the dominant form of PE buyouts over these years.

   • PitchBook- and law‑firm analyses report that add‑on acquisitions made up roughly three‑quarters of PE buyouts in 2022 and 2023 and remained around 76% of all PE buyouts in early 2024. (cbh.com)
   • McKinsey and Brookfield/Evalueserve similarly note that add‑ons accounted for about 70% of total PE deal count in 2023, up sharply from prior years. (mckinsey.com)
   • BDO reports that 76% of PE deals by volume in Q3 2023 were add‑ons, explicitly tying this to buy‑and‑build strategies. (bdo.com)
   • Other industry commentary (e.g., KPMG cited via business‑sale.com) describes “around two in three” PE deals being bolt‑ons in the current environment, reinforcing that bolt‑ons are now the typical PE transaction. (business-sale.com)

2. Tech/software is a leading sector for these add‑on strategies.

   • Cherry Bekaert’s 2024–2025 PE outlook notes that technology and healthcare are the top two industries for add‑on deal activity, and that the software segment is driving the tech sector’s rebound, with 926 software PE deals and $134.8B of deal value in 2024. (cbh.com)
   • Evalueserve’s Brookfield-sourced analysis gives concrete software examples where a sponsor used multiple add‑on acquisitions to boost EBITDA and exit valuation, illustrating that this buy‑and‑build/bolt‑on model is actively used in software platforms. (evalueserve.com)
   • While not every large, headline software deal is a bolt‑on (many are new platforms or take‑privates), the data above show that most PE deals by count are add‑ons, and tech/software is one of the most active sectors within that add‑on activity. It is therefore reasonable to infer that most PE acquisitions of software/tech businesses over this period are indeed structured as bolt‑ons to existing PE‑owned platforms.

3. The PE “playbook” has shifted from pure cost‑cutting toward synergy‑building, especially via add‑ons.

   • McKinsey’s 2024 paper notes that traditional PE value‑creation levers like financial engineering and simple operational efficiency have become harder, and that funds are turning to “transformational strategies” and add‑on deals to drive significant growth—i.e., revenue and operational synergies rather than just cutting costs. (mckinsey.com)
   • Brookfield/Evalueserve explicitly describes add‑on acquisitions as a way to realize revenue, cost and capital synergies, citing software cases where cross‑selling and expanded offerings drove higher EBITDA and exit multiples. (evalueserve.com)
   • Other market commentaries on add‑ons (e.g., Coldstream, BDO, Cherry Bekaert) consistently frame them as core to buy‑and‑build strategies—averaging down multiples, building scale, and accelerating growth and synergies—rather than as mere cost‑cutting exercises. (coldstreamcapitalpartners.com)

Assessment: Friedberg predicted that over the “next couple of years” after late 2022, the standard PE playbook in software/tech would center on bolt‑on/add‑on deals to existing platforms, with a focus on cross‑selling and synergy‑building in addition to cost‑cutting. Between 2022 and at least late 2024, add‑ons in fact made up the clear majority of PE buyouts, tech/software was a leading sector for such add‑ons, and industry analyses repeatedly describe these transactions as vehicles for revenue and operational synergies, not just cost reductions. Although deal databases do not break out an exact percentage solely for software add‑ons in public summaries, the combination of (a) overall PE statistics, (b) sector‑specific commentary, and (c) software case studies strongly supports his characterization. On balance, the prediction is best classified as right.