Welcome to the Tech &A Podcast. Presented by the Quorum Group. Welcome to the Tech M &A podcast. Here we feature special reports on 29 tech sectors, current valuations, key trends and interviews, highlighting the strategies, challenges and candid stories of tech entrepreneurs who have successfully sold their companies. Today we present the monthly Tech M &A report from the research team here at Coram. This is an audio presentation of our monthly webcast hosted the second Thursday of every month.
To register for our next webcast, Visit Coramgroup.com forward slash events. And now, the January Annual Report. Hello everyone, good morning, afternoon or evening depending on where you are. Welcome to Coram's Global Tech M &A Annual Report for 2025. I'm Tim Goddard, EVP of Corporate Strategies at Coram Group and your host for today. Please feel free to chime in with questions on the Q &A sidebar throughout the webcast.
And afterwards, we'll make slides available for your reference on our website. You can also reach out directly via info at coramgroup.com with any further questions or comments. Now here's our agenda for today. We'll begin with the CEO's desk, then a check in with upcoming events. And then we'll go to our top 10 disruptive technology trends report for 2025. And following that, we'll go to Quorum's annual TechM &A research report covering all six sectors and 29 subsectors.
And then we'll finish it off with our annual Luminary panel with their insights for the coming year. Now let's get started with the CEO's desk. I'll hand it over to Bruce Milne, CEO of Quorum Group. Are you ready for 2025? We believe TechM &A will set records this next year, especially for privately held companies. Look. Despite all the drama in the world, the major markets ended on a high at the close of 2024 with nearly all sectors recording better deal multiples than last year.
With the youngest baby boomers reaching 60, we expect more boomers to sell their tech companies in 2025 as they realize their succession planning options are limited. Hey, their kids don't want the business. As they look at it, venture debt is dead and IPO's are low. So most boomer tech CEOs will go through a traditional merger or sale. The biggest beneficiaries will be the platform companies set up by PEs.
Today, 60 to 80 % of all transactions are what they call bolt-ons or add-ins to these PE-backed platform companies. And hey, by the way, this will be a global phenomenon with many Asian-based companies being purchased by Western buyers. So if you're going to sell this next year and it will be a record year, get educated. The better educated you are, the greater your chances for success.
For an in-depth education on Tech &A and how to get ready for it, we encourage you to attend some of the 300 plus live and online conferences annually offered by Quorum, and many of them are offered by World Financial Symposiums. Our flagship conference, Selling Up Selling Out, is a half-day event designed to help you model and position your company with the best practices buyers look for. It's the definitive Tech &A bootcamp online, most attended, Tech Executive Educational Event in History.
Or we have a brand new two-day Tech &A Masterclass that you can attend in Las Vegas or other venues around the world. Just go to our website, www.cormgroup.com backslash events to see the upcoming dates. A special thanks to this year's Luminary Panel, leaders from the strategic and financial buyer community. We really appreciate your insights as we enter 2025. I want thank again Quorum's global team of researchers and analysts based in the Philippines, Spain, Mexico, Malaysia, and the Ukraine.
Our Quorum researchers are monitoring the world real time for tech &A, tracking evaluations and deals that affect you in all six major sectors and 29 sub-sectors. Lastly, please reach out if you'd like to speak to the Quorum team about opportunity to active in your sector. or just to get an idea what you're worth. We wish you success in 2025. Thank you, Bruce, for those insights. Now over to Brendan Keen, Quorum's Senior Marketing Coordinator, for the event report.
Thanks, Tim. Quorum is kicking off the year with a full schedule of online briefings and &A bootcamps in major business centers all across the world. We'll be hosting nine Merge Briefing Market updates online in Seattle, Johannesburg, Tokyo, Munich, Karachi, Baltimore, Brisbane, Tel Aviv, and London. We'll also be hosting 11 Selling Up Selling Out half-day bootcamps online in Calgary, Helsinki, Los Angeles, Vienna, Austin, Phoenix, Sao Paulo, Manila, Copenhagen, Kansas City, and Vancouver.
You can register for any of these and other events online at quorumgroup.com slash events. Now I'll hand it over to the World Financial Symposiums to hear about what they have coming up. Thank you, Brendan. And hello, everyone. WFS has five tech market spotlights coming up, starting with the health tech sector on January 15th. followed by IT services on January 22nd, blue color software on January 29th, security on February 5th, and the Nordics on February 12th.
Also coming up, the WFS Tech &A Masterclass will return to Las Vegas for its fourth edition, February 25th through 27th. This two-day, two-night interactive workshop covers all the must-knows of &A for tech CEOs and founders. You'll learn from our experienced speakers, all CEOs who've navigated the &A process, They will share proven best practices and the most effective tools to set your company up for a successful process.
Finally, the WFS will be hosting its premier online global conference, Growth and Exit Strategies, HealthTech, on April 3rd. Learn about the most up-to-date advice and trends on the health tech sector from venture capital, emerging growth capital, private equity, strategic buyers, &A experts, and CEOs who've built and sold their own tech companies. You won't want to miss this. Email info at wfs.com for more information about these exciting events.
Please join us online to get a professional analysis of the state of the market and take away practical advice on tech &A from the experts. Head over to wfs.com for more information on this or any other WFS event. Special thanks to Quorum for being a platinum sponsor for the event. Back to you, Tim. Well, thank you to Brendan and the WFS.
I also wanted to add something about the masterclass as well, because we've just gotten word that it's been approved by NASBA, which is the governing body for certified public accountants in the U.S. And attendees will be eligible for 10 CPE credits to keep their licensing current. The Nevada Bar Association has done the same thing, offering 12 CLE credits for lawyers who attend the class as well. I'll be there in February, so I'd love to see you there.
Now we get to one of my favorite parts of the year. The unveiling of our annual top 10 disruptive technology trends driving tech &A. Now, Corum has a unique vantage point on tech &A. the thousands of interactions with technology companies through our educational conferences, the extensive research that we do for our clients and for events like this, and our thousands of conversations with buyers for our clients, we have a broader view of what's happening in tech &A than anyone in the industry.
It's an advantage that we... leverage for our clients, but that we also put to work more generally each year when we develop our annual list of the top 10 disruptive trends that we see driving tech &A. We take all those discussions and research and then we synthesize it into the leading list of its kind every year. So if you're a tech company CEO considering &A, I encourage you to pay close attention.
Likewise, if you're a buyer seeking to make acquisitions, these are the key trends shaping your environment. Tech &A is uniquely driven by disruption. because disruption is what drives strategic comparative for buyers. Properly positioning your company in relation to this disruption is critical to getting the true value of your company. Well-positioned companies get sold. So given all that, let's take a look at our top 10 disruptive trends for 2025.
Our foundational trends are those that are changing things at a core level of society, technology, the economy, et cetera. Gen-AI enablement, people-centric productivity, actionable analytics, value chain intelligence, and embedded cash flow. Then there are the functional trends which describe how disruption is playing out in specific markets and technologies. Focused managed services, health tech continuum, RegTech systems, blue collar software, and the digitized environment.
Gen. AI enablement remains our top trend, even as you're seeing, I think, an increase in cynicism more broadly. Now that's the typical hype cycle pattern, and ultimately it's going to be a good thing for a lot of companies as the hype washes out of the system and leaves the companies who are really creating customer value. Right now, you're seeing the market sort out between really three categories.
Companies with good tech, but implemented in a high touch customized manner, they risk getting stuck doing proof of concepts until the market passes them by. Then there are a lot of firms who have pasted on a thin layer of Gen.ai on top of existing solutions. Now, if you've really found a killer use case, this can be effective, but usually does not drive buyer interest on its own. Where we're seeing the most interest is in robust tools, either purpose built for Gen.ai or
built within a foresight that GEN.AI has been able to slot in as a key enabling factor of a robust tool set. That's one half of the enablement concept, but the other half, arguably more active at the moment, is in those technologies and capabilities that are enabling GEN.AI itself at every layer of tech infrastructure. This includes unique data sources, LLM management, quality assurance, compliance, orchestration, training, and more. GEN.AI is extraordinarily compute intensive as well.
Coram client XISS was a high-performance computing and AI specialist acquired by N2 Group to help address this challenge. Electrical power needs are also changing as data center demand is soaring to support GEN.AI and tools addressing this are also in demand. Next up, people-centric productivity remains a key trend even as the employment market continues to shift.
While we're out of the depths of the worker shortage broadly, really the entire landscape of human resources is still wildly different than it was a few years ago and For many industries, that shortage is still a challenging reality. So that translates to a steadily strong &A market in HR tech and other tools that enable companies to attract, hire, retain, and engage employees.
Quorum sold higher-click makers of an AI-enabled applicant tracking system to HCM Leader Assure software to address exactly these challenges. Now, the other side of the trend is the software that helps employees do more with less, improving their productivity, automating drudgery, and letting them focus on the tasks that truly require a human being. Again, vertical market solutions are in high demand here.
For example, Quorum has done two deals in the nonprofit space with productivity enhancing platforms with DonorFi acquired by the Access Group in the UK and Better Impact acquired by the Brighton Group in the US. Actionable analytics is a broad term for technology that turns data into prescriptive insights that enable better, faster decision making. This can look like a wide variety of software.
It can be visualization tools with the dashboards and the classic charts and graphs, but More often, we're talking about features that are or can be embedded in those platforms that can access the right data, run the numbers, and point to optimal solutions. This provides a clear &A thesis for companies that have good technology that can enable a broader platform.
Quorum client NovoGrid provides analytics that help energy grid stakeholders identify actionable connection options ahead of investment, and was required by SCADA International to strengthen its broad grid modeling and energy project design capabilities. you'll see opportunities like these across industries.
Targeted decision support solutions like pricing, benchmarking, and related tools are also all relevant here, as are the supporting data management technologies that support the entire data infrastructure that makes these advanced analytics possible. Next, the value chain intelligence trend means technology that enables the movement of data across value chains of all kinds. In any kind of complex process, you always lose data when moving from one step to another.
between departments, between organizations, between trading partners, sometimes just between the individuals. Now, sometimes it's about context or metadata and sometimes it's the data itself. Software that keeps that data intact from step to step, enabling deeper insights and a broader view of the relevant environment is in high demand. In the software world, you see this in DevOps tools that more tightly link the development of solutions and then the operational departments that use them.
Quorum Client FlexiGon, provides DevOps solutions for complex enterprise environments like Oracle, SAP, and Salesforce, and was acquired by main capital partners. A very different example and a different part of IT infrastructure is Quorum Client Network Capacity Solutions, acquired by ConnectBase. Its comprehensive end-to-end inventory management capabilities bring together the disaggregated data about circuits and facilities necessary to deliver end-to-end connectivity.
That step from the physical world to the digital world is one where a lot of data can be lost and a lot of value can be created. We'll come back to that concept later. Next up, embedded cash flow. This is a continuation of some trends we've seen in the past along with some important new developments. It's really being driven by embedded finance on the one hand, financial services embedded into software, and then embedded fintech on the other.
Fintech and software embedded into more traditional financial services companies. In both cases, it creates significant demand for software companies that enable the movement of money, enabling higher returns by getting as close to that cashflow as possible. The biggest way we see this play out in &A remains the often untapped value of credit card processing.
A wide range of buyers these days seek software platforms that directly facilitate transactions, ERPs, POS, other commerce enabling solutions that usually are working with one or more third party processors to make that happen. When the acquirer has its own payment processing capability, they can create a significant new revenue stream in their acquired companies.
But beyond payments, we're seeing these sorts of opportunities expand to lending, insurance, payroll, and other ways that money moves and cash flows. Whether the acquirer is a software company with its own embedded financial services capabilities or financial services firm seeking tech, this trend more than most is about the combination between buyer and seller. So a key reason to get a broad view of the market when embarking on an &A process.
Focused managed services continues to be the lens through which buyers view services companies. That includes IT services, systems integrators, consulting, MSPs, software developers and more, but also tech enabled services more broadly. Buyers want both predictable, preferably truly recurring revenue, that's the managed part, as well as the deep specific domain knowledge, the focus that makes those customer relationships possible.
This can be a focus by sector or customer type, like our sale of ClearCloud, a cloud services company serving the US intelligence community acquired by defense contractor VTG. It can also be about a particular technology type or problem set like XISS, who I mentioned earlier, the experts in AI and high-performance computing.
Now you've also got technology ecosystems where deep expertise and customer relationships are key across cloud platforms like AWS or Azure or enterprise platforms like Salesforce, Oracle, ServiceNow, many others. I say this a lot, but it's generally easier to sell a hammer than a tool chest. So that kind of focus can really be the key to getting a deal done. The health tech continuum trend likewise is how buyers broadly approach companies selling into the healthcare vertical.
And it has been for quite a while. With significant consolidation, having swept across the world of traditional inpatient health systems and software, the need for a unified view of patients and their data across the continuum of care before and after they enter these facilities remains a key driver of &A. Healthcare payers have the same needs around data. Quorum Client HCIMs, data automation and RPA tools for claims management, it's a great example of this acquired by MetaMora partners.
Meanwhile, providers outside of the traditional healthcare systems of all kinds need comparable capabilities and niche EHR, patient management, patient engagement and related tools are in demand. This is increasingly true in those areas that are kind of the root causes of healthcare demand. Mental health and addiction treatment on the one hand, and of course, elder care and home health. on the other.
RegTech systems remains an active trend on both sides of the rules, both regulated industries and the regulators themselves. Technology that more easily enables compliance to the increasingly complex web of international regulations across GRC, EHS, EHD, lots of other acronyms. That's in demand. And then keep in mind, even deregulation adds additional complexity that really needs technology to deal with.
Beyond that, the layers of regulation go well past just those from the US government, international, local, industry imposed, the list goes on. This is one of the reasons it's fertile ground for &A is niche solutions addressing particular regulations and localities and either be acquired to be part of a broader platform or by financial acquirers who see the opportunity represented by a defensible niche and customers required to stay current. The same is true on the other side of regulation.
And that's one of the reasons that local government software has been in such high demand recently. Hence, the majority investment from quality standard into quorum client intertribal software which provides software to sovereign tribal governments across the United States. Frontline workers of all kinds are the beneficiaries of everything we've discussed previously, resulting in our blue collar software trend.
The way that digital transformation is changing the roles of blue collar workers is one of the key drivers of tech &A today. As data and insight gets pushed out more more broadly to workers and then back into the system from workers in the field or on the shop floor or wherever else they may be. This is true in the larger blue collar industries like agriculture, energy, construction, and manufacturing, where has done a number of deals recently.
But even within those narrow vertical focuses remain highly engaging to buyers. Corum manufacturing software client QStrat, sold to Embrace Software, for example, has the automotive and faster industries as its primary focus. Another is Corum client WRM software, acquired by Urban, facilitating the work of linemen and other frontline workers during storm response for energy and for critical infrastructure.
Their process management solution addressing significant safety, reliability, and logistical challenges. It's a great example of the sort of technology driving significant buyer interest.
Finally, the digitized environment, where a lot of what we just discussed about workers is happening with the physical environment as well, with the physical world being modeled, analyzed, and predicted digitally, but also monitored by a growing and diversifying number of sensors, and then with increasing digital control of the physical environment coming along as well. You can broadly look at this happening at three levels.
At the infrastructure level, particularly the energy infrastructure, we're seeing massive disruption deriving from the rapidly scaling AI driven data center power demand, and then electrification and the overall greening of power sources globally. This drives pure software deals like Novogrid's analytics capabilities that we talked about before, but watch for energy management, battery technology, and other solutions addressing these critical needs.
One level down from that, you've got the building level digitization driven by technology like digital twins and building information modeling. It was technology in that space that drove the investment in Quorum Client Glider technology by private equity firm Cow Corner. Finally, the area we've seen maybe the most activity is at the asset level.
Lots happening again in manufacturing with technology like real-time location tracking systems, Quorum Client Sevio acquired by HID, and equipment effectiveness monitoring. Quorum Client OEE systems acquired by MateMaster. Outside of manufacturing, we already talked about network capacity solutions, doing asset management in the connectivity space, and parking management is another area of interest, as seen with Everfield's acquisition of Quorum Client Park here.
As you can see, there's significant interest in this trend, both from financial and strategic buyers. So those are the disruptive trends for 2025. I hope they're helpful to you as you consider your strategy and your options in today's very active tech M &A environment.
So now that we've set the stage, let's get into the details with our annual Tech M &A Research Report by Quorum's world-renowned research team, taking a look at how Tech M &A did across all six sectors and 29 subsectors, getting a glimpse into what's in the works going into the new year. We begin with the public markets, which ended 2024 on a positive note for many leading indices. In the US, the S &P tech rallied higher by 23%, the NASDAQ surged by 29%, and the Dow increased 13%.
as investors cheered on interest rate cuts from the Federal Reserve. In Asia, the Hang Seng was up 18%, the SSE Composite rose by 13%, and the Nikkei rallied by 19 % as Chinese stimulus efforts offset concerns over a slowing global economy. Pivoting to Europe, the DAX rallied by 19%, the FTSE 100 rose by 6%, and the CAC 40 dropped by 2%. as markets digested how a new administration in the US would impact transatlantic relations.
Our Corum Index saw 5,055 tech M &A deals in 2024, including 61 mega deals, with the largest disclosed transaction worth $35 billion. There were 462 private equity platform deals and 1,085 VC-backed exits. Of note, there were 384 transactions from non-tech acquirers, highlighting the enormous and diverse buyer universe. In 2024, 38 % of tech M &A transactions were cross-border deals and 29 % of transactions were for startups.
Looking at our top leaderboards, Top Acquirer Constellation maintained its aggressive growth through acquisition strategy, closing deals for 109 companies across diverse markets within its extensive network of subsidiaries, achieving a new annual high. Traditional non-tech buyers were quite active this year, although making fewer deals than in 2023. For example, Brazilian soil analysis platform Incerus was acquired by Husqvarna to boost digital management in agriculture.
In 2024, Accenture led as the top strategic acquirer with 36 deals, followed by Assa Abloy and the 20 MSP with 10 tech deals each, and IBM holding fourth place with nine acquisitions. Other notable buyers included Nvidia, Infinite Reality, VTech, and Bedla, highlighting diverse industry interests dividing strong activity in tech M &A. In the top PE buyers ranks, HG Capital leads the pack with 81 deals, holding the first place for three consecutive years.
TA Associates have moved back to second place with 77 deals. Third and fourth place took Vista Equity and Toma Bravo, scored 41 and 40 deals respectively. Other top PE buyers include EQT, Main Capital Partners, Aqualine Capital, Francisco Partners, KKR, and Nordic Capital. Bolton deals outnumbered platform deals considerably with the rate reaching pre-COVID levels of 2020 as PE's focus on growing existing portfolio companies.
The venture capital market experienced steady growth from 2015 to 2021 driven by low interest rates, abundant liquidity, and rapid technological innovation, culminating in a record $598 billion in deal value and nearly 49,600 deals in 2021. However, from 2022 to 2024, the market faced a decline due to rising inflation and interest rates, economic uncertainty, public market corrections, and cautious investor sentiment.
with deal value dropping to $372 billion and deal volume to nearly 35,600 in 2024. Despite this downturn, a modest recovery in deal value in 2024 suggests a shift toward larger, more selective investments in resilient sectors like AI and clean energy. This signals a gradual stabilization of the market amidst more realistic valuations. Megadeal activity surged in 2024 with a 45 % increase in deal volume over 2023, culminating in 61 transactions.
This reflects a broader industry shift toward enterprise sectors driven by rapid digital transformation. Besides holding the largest tech deal of 2024, the vertical sector emerged as the leader in both deal value and volume. while the internet and consumer sectors contributed almost equal number of transactions. Let's cover some of those deals.
In the internet sector, Turkish online shopping platform Hepsi Berada was acquired for about $1.2 billion by Kazakh fintech and e-commerce giant, Kospi KZ, to expand its regional reach and create new opportunities for SMEs in Turkey and Kazakhstan. In the infrastructure sector, multi-cloud automation company HashiCorp was scooped up for $6.4 billion by IBM, bolstering its position in the cloud services market.
In the consumer sector, Apollo took private two gaming companies, IGT Gaming and Every, for $4.1 billion and $1.2 billion respectively, merging them into one entity. In the IT services sector, digital consultancy, Perficient, was bought by PE firm EQT in a $2.7 billion transaction. In the vertical sector, French digital music company Believe was purchased for $1.6 billion by an EQT-led consortium.
Finally, in the horizontal sector, billing software firm Zora was jointly acquired for $1.7 billion at 2.7 times revenue by PE firm Silver Lake and Singaporean wealth fund GIC. From the fourth quarter of 2023 to the final quarter of 2024, revenue valuations in the vertical and internet sectors climbed higher, while sales multiples in the infrastructure and IT services sectors were broadly flat.
During this period, EBITE valuations in the horizontal and consumer sectors rose materially and were largely flat in the vertical and infrastructure sectors. Let's dive into our six markets, starting with the horizontal sector. where sales valuations have been stable over the past year, with revenue multiples of 21 times in December 2024, almost matching the 12-month high achieved in November. EBITDA valuations rose from 3.9 times in September to 4 times in December 2024.
The supply chain management subsector had the highest sales in EBITDA valuations at 13.1 times and 45.3 times respectively. Seeking to take advantage of the people-centric productivity trend, Workforce Software was wrapped up for a reported $1.2 billion by ADP, growing its HCM offerings.
Among other deals, ONE, which detects software problems on PCs remotely, was acquired for $720 million at 10.4 times revenue by German remote working company TeamViewer to solidify its remote connectivity platform. and Corum Client HireClick, an all-in-one hiring solution developer, was scooped up by cloud-based HCM software provider, Assure, adding an AI-powered applicant tracking system to its suite.
There was a lot of &A activity in the CRM space, as digital adoption platform Walkme was bought for $1.5 billion by SAP, integrating it into SAP's transformation management portfolio to bolster its AI offerings. The dealmaking was largely driven by the Gen.ai trend. For example, Finnish Gen.ai customer experience setup, Lumoa, was swooped up by Swedish peer company, Netigate, aiming to transform experience management in Europe.
And in Germany, Ultimate, a Gen.ai-based customer support automation platform, was picked up by Zendesk, adding flexible AI agent capabilities to its offerings. Buyers were also active in the RegTech domain. as risk management platform AuditBoard was acquired in a $3 billion deal by PE firm HD Capital.
Compliance and Sustainability Software Provider EQS Group rolled up Sustainability Software Company Dado and the Ethics and Compliance Business Division of Privacy and Security Software Maker OneTrust, enhancing its sustainability reporting capabilities and expanding its global footprint. And CAMS, a cloud-based governance risk compliance platform. was picked up by risk management software firm RiskConnect to expand its product portfolio.
In the payment subsector, Ryan Reynolds-backed transaction processing platform New Way was pocketed for $6.3 billion at 5.3 times revenue by PE firm Advent and key Canadian shareholders. And crypto startup Bridge was bought for a reported $1.1 billion by payment giant Stripe, moving into the stablecoin subsector. Also, cross-border payments company GPS was bought for $725 million by Corpay as it looks to scale its corporate payments business.
And in Australia, PIN Payments, a payment solution for SMBs, was snapped up by payments processor Fat Zebra to strengthen its position in Oceania. In the SEM subsector, supply chain risk management platform developer Aveda swapped one private equity investor for another. as it was acquired for a reported $3 billion by EQT from Welsh, Carson, Anderson and Stowe.
Also, supply chain tech firm One Network Enterprises was bought for $839 million by logistics management SaaS Blue Yonder to create multi-enterprise supply chain. Fleet Complete, a Canadian provider of connected vehicle technology and fleet management software, was bought for $200 million by US-based IoT and mobile asset management specialist PowerFleet, strengthening its North American presence, and supply chain risk company Sayari Labs was acquired for $228 million by TPG.
The need for advertising automation spurred &A activity in 2024. For example, European telco Altis sold its SSP and video monetization company Teads for $1 billion to content recommendation platform Alperine, aiming to create an end-to-end advertising platform. Performance marketing company Adtheurant was bought for $324 million by TV advertising company Cadent, planning to expand beyond TV.
And data cleanroom software maker Haboo was acquired for $200 million by data collaboration platform LiveRamp to enable secure sharing of customer data. The consumer sector saw EBIT evaluations rise considerably over the past year, reaching 16.9 times in December 2024, compared to 11.1 times in April. Sales multiples rose from 2.4 times in October to 2.6 times in December 2024.
The casual gaming subsector had revenue and EBITDA multiples of 2.2 times and 12.6 times respectively, while the core gaming subsector had sales and EBITDA multiples of 2.9 times and 16.9 times respectively. In the ever active gaming sector, Former Quorum client Jagex, an online games developer, was jointly acquired for a reported $1.1 billion by CVC Capital Partners and Haveli Investments.
In Israel, mobile gaming company Superplay was pocketed for $700 million by mobile games pioneer Playtica, driving growth with popular titles. Mobile gaming studio Playrium was bought from Aristocrat by MTG for $620 million, adding the popular mid-core RPG raid Shadow Legends to its portfolio. And gaming conglomerate Embracer Group sold its subsidiary Gearbox, the Borderlands franchise developer, for $460 million to video games publisher Take-Two Interactive.
Increasing financial awareness spurred the popularity of personal finance applications. For example, consumer finance platform Moneylion was acquired for $1 billion at 2.2 times revenue by Norton and Avast owner, Gen Digital, to beef up its identity solutions with MoneyLion's digital ecosystem. Also, financial health startup, Bridget, was purchased for $400 million by financial services group Upbound, adding to its tech-driven financial solutions for consumers.
And digital investment platform, New Wealth, was snapped up by wealth management, Quilter, to boost first-time investor support. International M &A activity in the mobility solutions market continued in 2024 as UK's ride-hailing app Get was wrapped up for $175 million by Israeli smart mobility platform provider Pango to support growth in the ride-sharing and delivery markets in Israel and the UK.
And German-shared micro-mobility firm Tier merged with its Dutch peer DOT in a $175 million deal as they strive to become Europe's leading micro-mobility operator. Among leisure-related tech companies, Web3 gaming startup Stakes was purchased for $8 million by AI-driven social sports platform developer Infinite Reality, enhancing its portfolio of immersive sports technologies.
TenSeeker, a developer of a skill-based golf simulator and connectivity app, was picked up by Revelist, an operating segment of Vista Outdoor, to boost its golf tech offerings. And Quorum client ShotZoom, a mobile golf and digital coaching solutions developer, was acquired by its fellow company Golf Genius, venturing into the direct-to-consumer space. Sales multiples in the vertical sector rose from 4.4 times in February to 5.3 times in December 2024.
EBITDA valuations were largely flat over the past year and reached 20.8 times in December 2024. compared to 20.4 times in October. The AEC subsector had the highest revenue in EBITDA valuations at 11.7 times and 45 times respectively.
We spotted a number of transactions in the AEC subsector, including the largest deal of the year with engineering software giant, Ensys, being acquired for $35 billion by chip design software maker, Synopsys, to expand its reach in simulation software for designers of microchips. cars and airplanes. Among other deals in the AEC space, Corum Client Glider, a developer of asset information management software for the built environment, sold a controlling stake to PE firm CalCorner.
And in Italy, electronic design software provider Smart CAE was bought by CESA's wholly owned subsidiary VAR Group, strengthening its European digital engineering hub. There was a string of deals in EdTech. where Roper Technologies pocketed two companies, Child Care Management Software Developer ProCare Solutions and Campus Technology and Payment Solutions Provider Transact for $1.8 billion and $1.6 billion respectively, expanding its portfolio of software products.
Financial buyers were also eager to spend on EdTech as K-12 education software provider PowerSchool was taken private by Bain Capital in a $5.6 billion deal. and online education platform Instructure swapped one private equity investor for another as Toma Bravo sold it for $4.8 billion at 6.9 times revenue to KKR.
Elsewhere in the education field, curriculum management software maker Course Loop was purchased by TechnologyOne, an enterprise SaaS company aiming to cover the entire student life cycle within one ERP solution. As investors sought exposure to the health tech continuum trend, technology enabled multidisciplinary group specialty networks was purchased for $1.2 billion by healthcare services and products company Cardinal Health to bolster its offerings in key therapeutic areas.
Among other healthcare deals, Science IQ, a specialist in AI foundation models, was picked up for $140 million by healthcare data company Veridime. leveraging AI for advanced healthcare data intelligence. And Coram Client Healthcare Information Management, a specialist in the managed care slash payer industry, was acquired by Metamora Growth Partners as a step to the continued provision of innovative solutions for healthcare payers.
Last year, the blue collar software trend drove multiple acquisitions in the manufacturing field where Coram facilitated two transactions. In May, Coram Client OEE Systems An overall equipment effectiveness software specialist was acquired by maintenance management solutions provider, MaintMaster, to enhance asset performance and operational efficiency for its customers.
And in August, another Quorum client, Savio, a real-time locations tracking systems provider, was snapped up by trusted identity solutions specialist, HID, enhancing smart factory automation with ultra wideband technology. Elsewhere in the space, Italian manufacturing software company SEDAPTA was bought for nearly $68 million by Finnish telco and digital services firm Alisa, accelerating the growth of its industrial software business.
Finally, there were deals among software specialists targeting not-for-profit businesses. Just last month, volunteer management software company and Coram client Better Impact joined forces with investment firm The Briden Group, empowering volunteer managers and coordinators through innovative solutions.
In the UK, another Coram client, Donerfy, a provider of CRM software for charities, was acquired by business management software specialist, The Access Group, enabling nonprofits to maximize their impact. And lastly, peer-to-peer and digital fundraising solutions provider, DonerDrive, was wrapped up by social good software company, Bontera, expanding digital fundraising offerings.
The internet sector saw revenue valuations surge higher over the past year, rising from 1.4 times in June to two times in December 2024. EBITDA multiples rose to 12.9 times in December 2024 compared to 12.8 times in April. The travel and leisure subsector had the highest sales in EBITDA multiples at 3.8 times and 14.5 times respectively.
We tracked &A activity among real estate marketplaces, including Omega Deal as Singapore-based online real estate platform Property Guru was acquired for $1.1 billion by the Asia-focused arm of Swedish investment firm EQT. EQT also acted as a seller in the space, divesting its Spanish property listing portfolio company, Idilista, to Sinvan for $3.1 billion.
Among other deals, Qatari real estate marketing platform, Hapando, was snapped up by Kuwait-based prop tech, Seikan, broadening its footprint across the Gulf region. In the food delivery space, Europe's biggest meal delivery firm, Just Eat Takeaway, sold its U.S. unit Grubhub for $650 million to food delivery startup, Wonder, aiming to integrate Grubhub's network of restaurant partners into its app.
Food tech firm Grub Market wrapped up two online grocery service companies, Good Eggs and Fresh GoGo, strengthening its e-commerce capabilities. And delivery hero sold Food Panda, its restaurant delivery service in Taiwan, for $950 million to delivery platform Uber Eats to expand in the Asian market.
In the sports betting world, Playtec sold its Italy-focused omnichannel betting operator, Snitec, for $2.6 billion to Pokerstar's parent company, Flutter, lifting its online market share in Italy to around 30%. Flutter also pocketed NSX Group, the operator of Brazilian gaming group Bet Nacional, for $350 million as it seeks to expand in the soon-to-be regulated market.
Elsewhere in this field, Peruvian sports betting firm Apuesta Total was pocketed by Spanish casino operator Grupo Thierza, positioning itself as a key player in the developing Peru gaming market. We saw cross-border &A activity in the travel and leisure arena, including a mega deal, as Latin America-based online travel agency Despagar was bought for $1.7 billion by Dutch technology investment company Proces.
Among other deals in the space, UK-based Gap Your Travel platform GAP360 was purchased by cultural exchange programs provider Intrax out of the US, boosting global exchange in travel for youth. And just last month, Swedish camping platform Acamp was acquired by its Norwegian competitor Campio, bringing together two of the largest campsite and motorhome parking platforms in the Nordic.
The infrastructure sector saw EBITDA valuations rise from 17.1 times in October to 19.3 times in December 2024, while sales multiples rose from 3.9 times in May to 4.7 times in December 2024. The security subsector had the highest sales valuations at 6.7 times, and the storage and hosting subsector had the highest EBITDA multiples at 53.9 times.
Starting with deals in the development arena, Synopsys sold its software integrity unit to a PE consortium led by Clear Lake Capital and Francisco Partners for $1.5 billion. And website builder Squarespace was taken private in a $6.9 billion all-cash deal by PE firm Primera, underscoring private equity interest in the sector.
Among other deals in the space, AI-powered application development software specialist Quack was wrapped up for $230 million by DevOps platform provider JFrog to streamline AI models from development to production. And Coram client Flexagon, a DevOps software supplier, was acquired by main capital partners, further expanding into the infrastructure software market.
In the network management field, Juniper Networks was bought for $14 billion in an all-cash deal by Hewlett Packard Enterprise to bulk up its AI offerings. And InConnective, a telecommunications solutions company co-owned by Ericsson and Francisco Partners, was sold for $1 billion to Coke Equity Development, the principal investment and acquisition arm of Coke, becoming KED's wholly-owned independent subsidiary.
Also, network technology company Atronet sold its NetAce Network Management and Automation Solution to ServiceNow to accelerate business transformation for telecommunications companies. And network as a service specialist, Nytel, was bought by Comcast subsidiary and broadband communication solutions provider Comcast Business, deepening its cloud-based network capabilities.
We spotted &A activity in the threat intelligence domain as Insight Partners sold its company recorded future to MasterCard for $2.7 billion and nearly eight times revenue bolstering its cybersecurity capabilities. Elsewhere in the space. threat detection and defense firm Snap Attack was snapped up by Cisco, bolstering threat-informed defenses across enterprises.
And IBM sold its AI-enhanced security platform, Qradar, for $500 million to Palo Alto Networks as part of a new partnership between the companies to deliver AI-powered security offerings. Finally, there was yet another mega deal in the sector as machine identity management company, Venify, was acquired for $1.5 billion at more than 10 times revenue by access management firm CyberArk, marking its largest acquisition ever.
Among other ID and access management deals, VisionBox, a Portuguese provider of biometric solutions for airports, airlines, and border control, was bought for $347 million by Spanish travel booking firm Amadeus IT Group to deliver an end-to-end seamless passenger experience. And in France, Identity and access management startup Reach5 was wrapped up by payment orchestration company Purse to optimize transaction acceptance.
The IT services developed market sector saw revenue valuations climb higher over the past year, rising from 1.3 times in December 2023 to 1.4 times in December 2024. In the final month of 2024, EBIT evaluation stood at 11.1 times. The IT services developing market sector saw EBITDA multiples rise to 17.2 times in December 2024 compared to 12.8 times in May, while revenue valuations during this period rose from 2.3 times to 3.1 times.
Our top acquirer, Accenture, surpassed the number of companies it acquired in 2023 with 36 deals spotted across several key areas. including digital transformation, marketing, and such verticals as healthcare, education, and retail. There were deals on the services side of the gaming sector as Ireland-based video game services group, Keywords Studios, was taken private for $2.8 billion by Swedish investment firm EQT in a move towards the transition to next-gen video gaming and global expansion.
Upon its acquisition, Keywords Studios also acted as a buyer in this space. as it scooped up co-developers Certain Affinity, which has worked on games such as Halo, Hogwarts Legacy, and Call of Duty, as well as UK-based work for hire studio Wushu, adding scale and action genre expertise to keywords Create Division. Another game co-developer, Third Kind, was bought by Singaporean video game development company Virtuous to amplify its AAA co-development capabilities.
Finally, co-development studio Ghost Punch Games was purchased for over $13 million by game service provider PTW, adding to its co-development and AI capabilities. We saw demand for cloud services in 2024 as Spanish SAP technology services provider Novus Euphoria was bought by Swiss cloud native software developer SoftwareOne to expand its SAP practice.
And Quorum client ClearCloud, which delivers software, cloud, and data engineering solutions to the U.S. intelligence community, was acquired by national security solutions provider VTG, accelerating its growth. In 2024, buyers were also interested in companies providing all kinds of systems integration. For instance, in the UAE, AI ideology and AI tech services startup was snapped up by MDSSI.
a subsidiary of international technology distribution and services group, MEDIS, expanding its AI capabilities across the Middle East. And Quorum client XISS, a high-performance computing and AI specialist, was acquired by N Square Group, growing its portfolio. And that's our annual report. Special thanks to our amazing international research team. We continue to be extremely proud of all of you.
Please do get in touch if you'd like a copy of the full research report and we'll make it available to you. Now I'll hand it off to Heidi Owen, EVP of Marketing at Quorum for our Luminary Panel. Thank you, Tim. Welcome to our 2025 Luminary Panel. We're joined today by Krista Young, Managing Director of Corporate Development at Accenture, Peter Coffey, Vice President for Strategic Research at Salesforce, and Sebastian Carlson, CEO of Livia Group.
Thank you everyone for joining us today to share your thoughts about 2025 and the tech trends. Let's get straight into it. We've had a chance to see the trends Quorum thinks will drive &A activity this year. So what are the key trends you are seeing that tech company CEOs should be considering in the year ahead? Let's start with you, Krista. So the top trend, I have to say, I would be remiss to not focus on generative AI.
And a lot of the trends that we're seeing in technology right now all ultimately root back to generative AI. So Accenture last year committed a $3 billion investment in this field. And this has sparked so much interest by our clients and really creativity and enthusiasm about what technology can ultimately help us to achieve. And some of the tangential impacts of that is that we are seeing so much interest in focusing on underlying data.
data organization, making sure that we're capturing data in an efficient way for our clients that is legally compliant and in a way that is ultimately seamless and is helping people. We also are seeing just such a renewed interest in people-centric productivity and how do we really enable people to have the most exciting work at their fingertips, meaning that because of generative AI, A lot of the tasks that maybe were considered more mundane can ultimately be automated.
And that is yielding so many opportunities for us to be upskilling our employees within Accenture, most importantly, helping our clients as well. And the change management that goes along with that and how are we helping people to reimagine their day-to-day jobs? and really be able to create a career that is truly interesting, inspiring, and is at the cutting edge of technology. It'll be exciting to see in the next year how much faster and efficient we'll be working.
Thanks, Krista. What about you, Peter? You know, I try to be a little independent, a little contrarian, but it would be perverse not to highlight the emergence of generative AI from curiosity and novelty to a real industrial and commercial tool as being probably the thing that would be the biggest mistake to get wrong during 2025.
But I would like to say that if we're to use the word trend, you know, there's an expression that the, the stripe down the middle of the road is an easy thing to find, but it's a terrible place to drive. The middle of the road trend is to say, well, we need to take generative AI. and turned that into more of a tool. But it's easy to do that wrong.
Eric Braynielsen at MIT a few years ago said the mistake was that we let the Turing test, the ability for a machine to have a conversation with a human become the definition of real AI because people are already pretty good at that. We could argue that it would have been much more interesting if we'd said, what do people do poorly that a machine might be able to do better?
And for one thing, machines can in principle entertain several independent lines of thought at the same time instead of getting anchored on one. And chat GPT really took what AI could have been, which is like a society of minds and choke it down to a single thread of conversation.
So if you can think not in terms of automation that takes an existing activity and makes it cheaper and more consistent, instead think of a gentrification as something that spins up multiple independent lines of inquiry, action and knowledge, then you'll be busting out of the rut that others may be falling into with a trend of generative AI and instead really exploring the possibility.
The model I sometimes use is the first flying machines that people tried to build were ornithopters, mechanical flapping wings, because they'd seen birds flap their wings and thought, let's build a machine that does that or help some person do that. Well, Ornithopters didn't scale. A drone does not look like a flapping wing computer. Don't build ornithopters.
Look at the things they're doing now with drone shows where an orchestrated complex of hundreds or even thousands of drones are up there making pictures in the sky. That's not something you would have gotten by building flapping wing robots. So don't build ornithopters, build drone shows. That's a good answer, Peter. Sebastian? I think one, key trend will be to start using your data. There's a lot of different companies gathering data, but they have not started to use it yet.
For example, that's something quite easy for us to picture is to use the data in, for example, a data room to start actually creating insights of what we've already have gathered and already paid for. So I think I think one first step is actually to use your internal data and the internal data that is actually business critical to also make automatic business critical insights. Great. Thank you, Sebastian. Moving on to the next question.
Of the top 10 trends that Quorum has identified, are there any in particular that you are excited about and why? We'll start with Sebastian this time. I will say I looked into the list and there's one thing that's a little bit tied back to my first answer is actionable analytics. So again, we have all of this internal data, but we haven't thought about how we can actually structure it. And we haven't thought about how we can, what type of answers could we get out of it?
So again, I'm going back to We work a lot with the acquisition, work a lot with legal documents. If we, for example, would draft an SBA, let our lawyers use the old and all of our data to see, if you've actually put in a clause 7.1, also think about 8.3, et cetera. So I think again, the data and insights from all the internal documents that we have. start to actually use them and make them guide you in your action in your day-to-day work life. Excellent. Thank you, Sebastian. Krista?
So this is one where I almost have to put my Accenture hat to the side because what I'm most excited about out of the Corum Trends is blue collar software. So the blue collar industry is at a really interesting and monumental inflection point. where there has not, it's definitely an industry that has not been at the forefront of technological change and enablement. And the workforce in general is much more closer to retirement age than any other industry that we're seeing.
So I see the real opportunity is not only in the tools, that we are enabling blue collar workers to use, but the on ramp to the trades and blue collar work in general, meaning traditionally, the way that you would get into the trades or that type of work would either be through an apprenticeship or most commonly through the union.
And I think that there's a tremendous opportunity right now within that industry to be leveraging technology as an on ramp to train upscale and ultimately manage the career experience for those individuals. So I'm really excited over the next few years in particular to see how the blue collar industry is impacted by technology. Thank you, Krista. And you, Peter?
Of the top 10 trends that Coram's identified this year, the one that's exciting to me is number five, which is value chain intelligence. I'll tell you why I find it exciting. That trend statement doesn't just say this is going to happen. It presents a challenge and a call to action that I think people can apply almost every day because you can ask every time you look at a process, what value is being added here? What value is maybe being lost and what are the friction, the rust and the gravity?
They're being tolerated through force of habit or failure to recognize new capability. There's no question that there's more information flowing there's more capability to apply automation without human skills of coding and other things that used to be very scarce skills. There's more ways to do that, but I love the statement that the trend is value chain intelligence because there are so many places where the friction, rust and gravity are sapping value or failing to realize new value.
And the fact that I'd love to share with people is you realize that more than half of the human made satellites that are orbiting Earth today are Starlink satellites doing nothing but create new communication bandwidth and they are still launching in mass quantities.
And if we're not doing something with that capacity that does more than just lower the cost or increase the volume of things that we're already doing now, then we're just not trying hard enough to visualize that new possibility in this phrase of value chain intelligence. is not just a trend that's going to happen.
It's a challenge and a filter and a test that we should be applying to everything that we do, saying, what is the value that I can be adding at this step instead of things just being handed off from one stage to the next? Thanks, Peter. What's the number one reason you get excited about a company as an &A target or strategic partner? Let's go to Peter first.
If I'm thinking about what makes a company, an &A partner or a strategic partner right now, then the thing I would look at is to address what I have called earlier today, the friction, rust and gravity. Are they turning noise into signal by finding new insights in unstructured data or are they smoothing and accelerating processes by enabling low code and no code approaches so that I can move the solution of the problem closer to the people who really understand it?
And interestingly, instead of pushing the frontiers of what's possible, which often involves diminishing returns of more cost for each increment of improvement, are they backing off and zooming out and looking at 80, 20 or 90, 10 situations where you can do a large fraction of the value, not by trying to do more, but paradoxically by doing a little bit less, but at an enormously lower cost where you meet most of the need with a much simpler or less skills intensive way of doing things.
These are the creative approaches that would make someone to me a genuinely interesting partner and not just someone that I'm hiring to do something that I conceivably couldn't do myself. Are people doing what adds value and widens margins instead of just lowering costs? Because right now the world is full of opportunities to pursue profitless revenue. Revenue targets have never gotten me excited.
Creating new value and creating new customers in the phrase of Peter Drucker is something that will always get me interested in a potential partner. Thank you, Peter. Sebastian? If we're looking at our own portfolio and how we create value through &A, I will say we are looking at companies actually creating IP on IP.
So they create software on the... other legacy software or market leading software, because then you have a big addressable market already and you're selling towards existing customers. And it's also easy to do and expand the go-to-market strategy. And also if you're looking more at the standalone acquisition, I will say the same that you're using tech and you're actually been modulizing the tech. So you have a clear path of land and expand.
One product or one module of the product to have, I will say, a low customer acquisition and another part of the product to actually expand your footprint within your customer. So I will say that is the key characteristic that we search for when we're doing an M &A in 2025. That's great, Sebastian. Thank you. Now to you, Krista.
So the one thing that makes me most excited about engaging with another party as an &A target is an organization and a leadership team that is really excited about change. Individuals that consider themselves to be digital pioneers who are interested in trying new things, breaking the mold and seeing ultimately what technology and human ingenuity can do together. Thank you again, everyone, for being on with us today and sharing your perspectives.
We're looking forward to working with you in the new year. Thank you for leading that panel, Heidi, and thanks, of course, to our panel of industry luminaries for joining us. It's always great to hear from all of you. Well, that brings us to the end of this global report. Thank you for joining us. We'll see you again next month for part two in our annual private equity panel. Before we close out, here's a sneak preview of next month's Tech &A Masterclass in Las Vegas.
Stay tuned to find out how to get in touch. Join us in Las Vegas for the 2-day, 2-night Tech &A Masterclass that will give you everything you need to know for merger, sale, or recapitalization at maximum value. Corum is partnered with World Financial Symposiums, WFS, to offer this special event. The new Fountain Blue Hotel and Casino with the finest restaurants, entertainment, shopping, and the largest pool in Vegas is your host. The perfect place to mix business with pleasure.
Masterclass with advanced case studies and personal interaction with experts, deal makers, and fellow CEOs who have sold gave me all I needed. It's everything Coram and the WFS teach and so much more. The bonus sessions on succession slash estate planning and AI roadmap were worth the price of admission. This is a case of what happens in Vegas doesn't stay in Vegas. Attendees of the Tech &A Masterclass will take away practical knowledge through an executive summary writing workshop.
hands-on valuation exercises, and up-to-date &A case studies. In addition, you'll receive a CEO worksheet, industry valuation metrics, go-to market checklists, diligence preparation lists, deal structure workshop, plus a special bonus section on succession and estate planning tailored to the owners of software and IT companies. Included in the price will be all course materials, checklists, case studies, and relevant research, as well as all meals and cocktails included at the group events.
The smart money in Vegas is betting on Gen. AI. Are you? To make sure you're in the winner's circle, World Financial Symposiums has invited Dr. Ivan Ruzic to join the faculty to present on the impact of Gen. AI with advice on how to benefit from this disruptive tech trend. Join us at the new Fountain Blue Las Vegas Hotel and Casino for the Tech &A Masterclass. The one class to help ensure that you get the value you deserve for the value you built into your company.
It's the next generation of the Las Vegas experience. If you'd like a copy of this month's full Tech &A Research Report, email us at info at coramgroup.com. Thank you for tuning in to the Tech &A Podcast. If you enjoyed the show, please share it with your friends, colleagues and fellow entrepreneurs. We release new episodes every two weeks and present the research report on the second Thursday of each month.
So make sure to subscribe and stay up to date on our latest interviews and Tech &A Research. And while you're there, go ahead and drop us a rate and review. And if you have any suggestions or topics you'd like us to cover, please reach out to us on social media or email us at info at Coram group.com. Join us again next time for more inspirational stories and practical tips from tech founders who have successfully navigated the exits of their companies.