Tech Industry Acquisitions

☁️ 𝗚𝗼𝗼𝗴𝗹𝗲 𝗷𝘂𝘀𝘁 𝗺𝗮𝗱𝗲 𝗶𝘁𝘀 𝗯𝗶𝗴𝗴𝗲𝘀𝘁 𝗮𝗰𝗾𝘂𝗶𝘀𝗶𝘁𝗶𝗼𝗻 𝗲𝘃𝗲𝗿. A $𝟯𝟮 𝗯𝗶𝗹𝗹𝗶𝗼𝗻 𝗱𝗲𝗮𝗹 to buy 𝗰𝗹𝗼𝘂𝗱 𝘀𝗲𝗰𝘂𝗿𝗶𝘁𝘆 𝘀𝘁𝗮𝗿𝘁𝘂𝗽 𝗪𝗶𝘇. The purchase eclipses the $12.5 billion Motorola Mobility deal and nearly equals what it spent on its top 10 acquisitions combined. 1. 𝗪𝗶𝘇 (expected in 2026): $32 billion 2. 𝗠𝗼𝘁𝗼𝗿𝗼𝗹𝗮 𝗠𝗼𝗯𝗶𝗹𝗶𝘁𝘆 (2012): $12.5 billion 3. 𝗠𝗮𝗻𝗱𝗶𝗮𝗻𝘁 (2022): $5.4 billion 4. 𝗡𝗲𝘀𝘁 𝗟𝗮𝗯𝘀 (2014): $3.2 billion 5. 𝗗𝗼𝘂𝗯𝗹𝗲𝗖𝗹𝗶𝗰𝗸 (2007): $3.1 billion 6. 𝗟𝗼𝗼𝗸𝗲𝗿 (2020): $2.6 billion 7. 𝗙𝗶𝘁𝗯𝗶𝘁 (2021): $2.1 billion 8. 𝗬𝗼𝘂𝗧𝘂𝗯𝗲 (2006): $1.7 billion 9. 𝗪𝗮𝘇𝗲 (2013): $1.2 billion 10. 𝗛𝗧𝗖 𝘀𝗺𝗮𝗿𝘁𝗽𝗵𝗼𝗻𝗲 𝘂𝗻𝗶𝘁 (2018): $1.1 billion 𝗔 𝗦𝗲𝗰𝗼𝗻𝗱 𝗖𝗵𝗮𝗻𝗰𝗲 Last year, 𝗪𝗶𝘇 𝗿𝗲𝗷𝗲𝗰𝘁𝗲𝗱 𝗚𝗼𝗼𝗴𝗹𝗲’𝘀 $𝟮𝟯 𝗯𝗶𝗹𝗹𝗶𝗼𝗻 𝗼𝗳𝗳𝗲𝗿, betting it could thrive independently or go public. But Google stayed persistent, keeping lines open with Wiz’s leadership while competition for the company grew. When Google came back to the table, Wiz had seen its annual recurring revenue jump from $𝟱𝟬𝟬 𝗺𝗶𝗹𝗹𝗶𝗼𝗻 to over $𝟳𝟬𝟬 𝗺𝗶𝗹𝗹𝗶𝗼𝗻, and the cloud security market had become even more critical. This time, the deal moved quickly—with Google outbidding rival suitors and reportedly offering a $𝟯.𝟮 𝗯𝗶𝗹𝗹𝗶𝗼𝗻 𝗯𝗿𝗲𝗮𝗸𝘂𝗽 𝗳𝗲𝗲 Google would pay to Wiz if the deal collapses. 𝗪𝗵𝘆 𝗪𝗶𝘇? 𝗧𝗵𝗲 𝗖𝗹𝗼𝘂𝗱 𝗦𝗲𝗰𝘂𝗿𝗶𝘁𝘆 𝗥𝗮𝗰𝗲 Founded in 2020, Wiz skyrocketed to become a dominant cybersecurity player, with over 45% of Fortune 100 companies relying on its tools. As businesses increasingly operate across multiple cloud platforms, security is a growing concern. Wiz specializes in cloud-native cybersecurity, allowing companies to detect and respond to threats across Google Cloud, AWS, and Microsoft Azure. By acquiring Wiz, Google isn’t just enhancing its security capabilities—it’s making a play for large enterprise customers that use multiple cloud providers. Additionally, Wiz’s expertise complements Mandiant, the cybersecurity firm Google bought in 2022 for $5.4 billion. Together, they bolster Google’s position as a serious competitor to Microsoft, which dominates cloud security with $20 billion+ in annual revenue. 𝗪𝗵𝗮𝘁’𝘀 𝗡𝗲𝘅𝘁? The deal faces regulatory scrutiny, especially with Google already under pressure from antitrust investigations. With a significant breakup fee, Google is showing confidence that it can clear the hurdles. If successful, this move could reshape Google Cloud’s security offerings, boosting its position as AI-driven cloud computing takes center stage. 𝗜𝗳 𝘆𝗼𝘂 𝗹𝗶𝗸𝗲 𝘁𝗵𝗶𝘀, 𝘆𝗼𝘂'𝗹𝗹 𝗹𝗼𝘃𝗲 𝗼𝘂𝗿 𝗻𝗲𝘄𝘀𝗹𝗲𝘁𝘁𝗲𝗿! 𝗛𝘂𝗻𝗱𝗿𝗲𝗱𝘀 𝗼𝗳 𝘃𝗶𝘀𝘂𝗮𝗹𝘀 𝗲𝘃𝗲𝗿𝘆 𝗲𝗮𝗿𝗻𝗶𝗻𝗴𝘀 𝘀𝗲𝗮𝘀𝗼𝗻. 𝗝𝗼𝗶𝗻 𝟮𝟬𝟬,𝟬𝟬𝟬+ 𝘀𝘂𝗯𝘀𝗰𝗿𝗶𝗯𝗲𝗿𝘀. Check out our coverage of Alphabet's latest quarter. 👇 https://lnkd.in/g52r7C3h

Tech M&A is heating up, with 2025 on pace to match or beat previous annual highs for aggregate deal valuation as AI and $100M+ deals drive momentum. At the top, it's an arms race among giants. Meta broke its two-year acquisition drought to grab TWO voice AI startups. NVIDIA bought CentML for $400M. Apple's CEO signaled openness to large M&A for the first time in company history. For others, this isn't just about adding features anymore; it's about survival. With AI threatening to obsolete entire business models, companies are buying their way out of irrelevance. The incumbents have heard the death knell, and they're buying the bell ringers. The numbers tell the story: ↳Public SaaS acquisitions of AI startups will more than double YoY in 2025 ↳By year-end, they'll surpass 2022, 2023, and 2024 combined ↳AI startups are exiting 6 years faster than peers Can incumbents buy their way out of disruption? With deal sizes nearly doubling, companies are betting everything on yes. The other side of the M&A boom sees a PE roll-up renaissance. Private equity is salivating over the flood of companies that raised in 2021. They see complementary products ripe for bundling, overlapping costs ready for elimination, distressed assets, opportunity to create super-platforms, and of course, the opportunity to make everything "AI-first". The punchline: Whether it's strategics buying innovation or PE rolling up the wounded, tech M&A's new wave is just getting started.

📊 EY’s June 2025 M&A snapshot reveals a clear trend 🔹 +68.3% YoY in #deal value (for $100M+ deals) 🔹 Fewer deals, but larger and more strategic—$82B across five megadeals 🔹 60%+ of total value from #corporate #buyers focused on #TMT and infrastructure 🧠 The most telling move? Salesforce’s $8B acquisition of Informatica announced last month. This deal marks a shift: buyers are no longer just acquiring intelligence—they’re acquiring the #datagovernance backbone to support it. What’s driving buyer behavior? 1️⃣ #Governance as Core #Infrastructure Informatica’s integration into Salesforce underscores how #MDM, lineage, and cataloging tools are now foundational to deploying responsible, enterprise-grade AI. 2️⃣ #Security & #Compliance by Design With 80% of AI pilots failing to scale, success increasingly hinges on LLM-safe zones. Platforms like Snowflake Cortex, Databricks Mosaic, Informatica CLAIRE, and Amazon Web Services (AWS) DataZone are embedding governance directly into orchestration flows. 3️⃣ Time-to-Insight #Acceleration #Data-native platforms like Sigma, Hex, Coda and even legacy-modern hybrids like Informatica - are reducing insight latency by 30–98%, driving deal interest. #Strategic M&A isn’t chasing volume—it’s targeting resilient, secure, and AI-scalable infrastructure at the data layer. #MergersAndAcquisitions #DataEcosystem #Informatica #Cybersecurity #DataGovernance #GenAI #CloudSecurity #TMT #PrivateMarkets #StrategicBuyers

Most deals don’t fail because the numbers were off. They fail because the assumptions, especially about people, were wrong. Too often, teams focus on financial modeling, market sizing, and legal risk, while neglecting one of the most critical components of a successful acquisition: cultural fit. 🔹 Strong dealmakers know better. They don’t wait until post-close to start thinking about how teams will work together. They start on Day 1. In a Buyer-Led M&A™ approach, cultural diligence isn’t a checkbox, it’s a core pillar. Every functional lead is trained to assess not just operational alignment, but cultural compatibility. They're not simply asking, “Can this company be integrated?” They're asking deeper questions: “How do these people think? What motivates them? Will they thrive inside our environment, or push back against it?” This kind of people-centric diligence is what separates deals that look good on paper from deals that actually create long-term value. Because when you align the people, you reduce friction, unlock collaboration, and preserve the momentum that made the target attractive in the first place. Buyer-Led M&A™ isn’t just about controlling the deal process, it’s about earning the right to scale by aligning strategy and culture. #BuyerLedMA #MergersAndAcquisitions

M&A Activity Surges Amid Policy Tailwinds and Economic Resilience: M&A activity is roaring back to life, fueled by a potent combination of resilient global growth, falling interest rates, deregulation, and greater clarity around tariffs and geopolitical risks. This new macro and policy backdrop has unleashed a fresh wave of corporate confidence, empowering CEOs and Boards to pursue bold, strategic combinations. Financing costs have declined meaningfully, with loan rates down 50 basis points in the U.S. and over 100 basis points in Europe in 2025, sharpening the math for LBOs. Meanwhile, deregulation has reduced political friction, increased certainty of regulatory approval, and accelerated deal timelines. In parallel, tariffs, once a cloud over global dealmaking, are now priced into when evaluating cross-border transactions for exporters and importers. Spin-offs are also on the rise as companies sharpen their strategic focus. U.S. spin-off volume doubled in Q2 2025, as firms seek to unlock value and shed non-core assets. The environment is now one of action, after a long period of hesitation. This resurgence comes at a critical juncture for Private Equity. With ~30,000 sponsor-owned portfolio companies globally, the industry has faced mounting exit pressure, especially for 2016–2021 vintage funds, which have reported ~20% lower DPI relative to prior funds. We are seeing green shoots with M&A up 20% and bankers on pace for their best year since 2021: IPOs, sponsor-to-sponsor deals, M&A exits, and dividend recaps are all re-accelerating. For credit investors, this is equally constructive, since ~50% of LBO capital structures are funded with debt, higher deal velocity directly supports origination pipelines. Sectors like technology, defense, energy, healthcare, transportation and business services are leading the rebound, offering rich pipelines for both equity and debt capital providers. Union Pacific-Norfolk Southern, Baker Hughes -> Chart Industries, Charter -> Cox, Alphabet -> Wiz are setting the tone, with significantly more to come as this momentum is highly likely to continue. Could it be that the best is yet to come?

I've been thinking about the WHY behind the Google and Wiz marriage, and my key takeaway is... Google just bought its way into owning the core foundation (cybersecurity-focused data fabric) of a unified security system for all code and cloud. Wiz created the ultimate graph-based cyber approach that works well with an AI overlay. Wiz will become the bedrock of all Google cyber offerings in the future. Expect Google to become a dominant player in the platformization race for global cyber dominance. All of you marginalized security markets out there - try not to celebrate too hard. I don't think that Google is where good companies go to die. This isn't the old days where acquisition meant death. I expect Google to leverage this acquisition into a top-three cyber position over time, competing specifically against a selection of PANW, CRWD, MSFT, ZS, and Amazon.

You know what’s cooler than getting acquired for $23B? Walking away from the deal, waiting nine months, and then getting acquired for $32B—with a $3.2B termination fee if the deal doesn’t go through. That’s the story of Wiz and Google. I have to hand it to Google for its patience and persistence in making this happen. But we’re just getting started. I’ve been on my phone all day, fielding questions from customers who are trying to make sense of this deal. A lot of folks, including a number of reporters I talked to, are also wondering: What will Google do with Wiz? And why did they pay so much? That’s an easy answer. Google Cloud has already made significant investments in cybersecurity—SecOps through Chronicle, threat detection and incident response through Mandiant, and a thriving third-party marketplace with partners such as Palo Alto Networks. This move shouldn’t come as a surprise. Google has been working toward a unified cloud security and TIDR (threat intelligence, detection, and response) platform that runs on a single "security fabric." Wiz’s CNAPP platform and security graph will be critical in making cloud security a first-class citizen. As SoC automation accelerates, customers are looking for a modern CDR (continuous detection and response) solution—one that goes beyond traditional EDR/XDR or SIEM/SOAR models. They want a cloud-first approach to power their SoC, and that’s what’s driving the frenzy. And let’s not forget the bigger picture: Every dollar spent on cybersecurity, just like AI and analytics, translates into even larger spend on cloud services. Google would prefer that spending to happen on Google Cloud—not Azure or AWS. And that’s the concern shared by many people I spoke to. While Wiz has been a key Google Cloud partner, a significant portion of its customers are on Azure and AWS. Google’s experience with multi-cloud offerings through previous acquisitions, such as Looker, will be beneficial. Nevertheless, delivering cloud-native security solutions on cloud platforms outside its direct control introduces an entirely new set of complexities. Google's ability to navigate these challenges—while retaining Wiz’s existing Azure and AWS customers—will be crucial to making this acquisition successful in the long term. So far, Google has managed to maintain trust with their security ISV partners despite sizeably growing its first-party security portfolio. The ecosystem is thriving. But the big question partners I spoke to are asking: Is this a one-off acquisition, or the start of Google’s push to go all-in on security and build a security empire? It’ll be a while before this deal closes, and I’ll be watching closely. I’m also advising our CxO clients to do the same. Next month, I’ll be at Google Cloud Next and RSAC, digging into this with Google, customers, and partners. And people think cybersecurity is boring. Yes, it's $32B boring.

We've been talking a lot about platformization in cybersecurity. We're not talking enough about aggregation. Alphabet acquiring Wiz should have us all paying attention by now. Ben Thompson (Stratechery) brought the idea of Aggregation Theory to light in a series of articles about large tech companies. The core idea is this: Companies that create platforms capable of aggregating a large number of users and suppliers can bypass traditional gatekeepers to gain significant power and competitive advantage. Okay, sounds mildly terrifying...what does that mean for the cybersecurity industry? Cybersecurity companies (mostly) aren't the ones *doing* the aggregating — they are *being* aggregated. Cloud providers are beginning to offer cybersecurity products and services to customers in more flexible, easy-to-use pieces than ever before. For example, if an AWS customer wants to hire an MSSP or buy an EDR product, they can browse a list of companies on the AWS Marketplace and buy it directly. They may even have pre-committed cloud spend to use for the purchase. In more technical terms: Aggregators (cloud providers) are modularizing suppliers (cybersecurity product and services companies) and using control of customer demand (businesses using their cloud services) to control distribution of products and services (via marketplaces). This is a massive, massive change in both distribution and purchasing behavior. Being "aggregated" is totally fine as long as you recognize it's happening and generally understand the effects. Companies like CrowdStrike, CyberArk, Okta, and more are all super optimistic their marketplace growth. Wiz has been doing ~50% of its revenue from marketplaces. This can be done well, but it has to be intentional. This shift is going to keep impacting the cybersecurity industry in all kinds of ways. You thought Alphabet buying Wiz was big? We're just getting started.

M&A deals rarely fall apart because the financial model was flawed— not when seasoned finance teams have built and vetted it. But, they fall apart all the time because the model and the contracts weren’t in sync. Founders love the model. That’s where the value lives, in pristine financial charts and tidy valuation outputs. But unless the M&A agreements mirror that model to a T? It’s just theory. Not reality. That value is up for grabs. Think of it as a variant of this: —The financial team is like an architect. —The legal team is like a builder. —If they’re not constructing the same house? It collapses. Earnouts. Rollover equity. Working cap. Tax. Debt structure. Preferences. These aren’t “details.” They’re “value transfer mechanisms.” The financial model sets the vision and framework to chase it. But the contract turns that vision into reality… or ruins it. M&A contracts are almost always loaded with fine print, compliments of many buyers. Not just the annoying Comcast kind you can’t cancel. This kind rewires the payout. Reshuffles the waterfall. And changes if, when, and how much of the modeled value you actually see. If you’re not paying close attention, it rearranges your upside to benefit theirs. Founders, this is where deals are won or lost. 👉 Not in theory—in execution. #deals #founders

The root cause of failure in buy-side M&A? It's not a poor strategy, but inadequate due diligence. The solution? You must shift your focus. Here's how: 1. Dig deeper: Look beyond the financials. Understand the company culture, key employees, and hidden liabilities. 2. Think long-term: Don't just focus on immediate gains. Consider how the acquisition fits into your 5-10 year plan. 3. Involve the right people: Bring in industry experts, not generalists. Their experience can uncover critical details. 4. Be patient: Rushing due diligence is a recipe for disaster. Take the time to do it right… and make sure the seller knows why. 5. Plan for integration: Start thinking about how you'll merge operations from day one. Don't skimp on due diligence. It's your best defense against a failed acquisition. Need help with your M&A strategy? Drop me a DM with "DILIGENCE," and let's talk about how to set your deal up for success.