Start-up investors saw M&A in 2024 as a fast track to liquidity. While Crunchbase data shows that deal volume for venture-backed firms is likely to grow yr over yr, it stays sluggish compared to previous years.
This is despite the undeniable fact that public markets have been historically sluggish and private company valuations have declined, which should make takeovers more attractive to buyers.
Interestingly, some of the biggest mergers and acquisitions this yr were conducted by private equity firms somewhat than the public firms that typically top the takeover charts.
Overall, venture-backed mergers and acquisitions reached $67 billion this yr across greater than 1,300 deals, according to Crunchbase data. (It’s price noting, nevertheless, that only about 16% of transactions analyzed since 2019 have an associated price. Most transaction prices are not disclosed.)
These numbers are on par with the total M&A deal value in 2023, which was $72 billion across greater than 1,700 deals.
Still, 2024 stays lower than previous years’ baselines.
While mergers and acquisitions and exits from the public market remain slow, secondary financing is growing in popularity, returning some capital to investors.
EP leads
Biotechnology was the sector that led to the most acquisitions in 2024, price over a billion dollars. Among software firms acquired for a billion dollars or more, private equity firms acquired most this yr.
In previous years, public firms typically topped the rankings for the largest deals.
Significant transactions this yr include those based in New York Apolloplanned takeover of a London parcel delivery company euro for nearly $3.5 billion and is based in London HgAcquisition of a legal and compliance technology startup for $3 billion Audit Committeebased in Cerritos, California.
With all the biotech enterprise funding on the market, it’s no surprise that this was one of the biggest deals Merckacquisition of a New York company dealing with the treatment of eye diseases Ocobiotechnology.
Active buyers
The most energetic buyer of venture-backed startups in 2024 so far has been a Swedish private equity firm EQTwith seven disclosed deals for venture-backed firms in the real estate, data, security and logistics sectors, according to Crunchbase data.
An organization providing public cloud services was also energetic this yr Salesforce 1semiconductor company Nvidiasecurity company CloudflareAND Autodesk3D design software programmer for construction. For these buyers, sectors included cloud management, AI tools, security and asset management, and content creation platforms. In the healthcare sector Stryker actively acquired medical devices, health monitoring and ligament building firms.
One private company also made the list of more energetic buyers: a Connecticut-based virtual environment company Infinite realitywhich acquired firms from the gaming, Web3 and entertainment industries.
The Magnificent Seven
Of the so-called great seven largest technology firms, Microsoft, Alphabet, Amazon, Apple AND Meta Crunchbase data shows that they were less energetic buyers in 2023 and 2024.
Nvidia was more energetic while Tesla According to Crunchbase data, it is not an energetic buyer.
Googleacquisition of the company for $23 billion Wizard it might be the biggest deal this yr if it weren’t for the cybersecurity start-up he withdrew from the offering in July, in part due to the regulatory environment.
And he had artificial intelligence startups AI overkill, Character.ai AND AI supporter were acquired by Microsoft, Alphabet and Amazon respectively, 2024 will probably be a blockbuster yr for M&A startups. Instead, firms have gone the route of entering into licensing agreements to pay enterprise investors, and in many cases AI teams from startups have joined public cloud firms.
Methodology
For this M&A evaluation, we included firms that raised early- and late-stage enterprise capital. The data does not include listed firms that were subsequently taken over.
Please note that each one financing amounts are in US dollars unless otherwise noted. Crunchbase converts foreign currency echange to U.S. dollars at the spot rate in effect on the date financing rounds, acquisitions, IPOs and other financial events are reported. Even if these events were added to Crunchbase long after the event was announced, currency transactions are converted at the historical spot price.