It’s that time of year when we look back at the year’s biggest tech M&A deals. Typically by this time, the usual acquisitive suspects like Microsoft, Salesforce, Adobe, SAP Oracle and Cisco have taken at least a few big swings. But this year, only Cisco took a big bite, ultimately announcing 11 total deals.
SAP made a couple smaller deals, but Microsoft, Salesforce, Adobe and Oracle mostly stayed on the sidelines this year. The $61 billion Broadcom-VMware deal announced in May 2022 finally closed last month, and Adobe and Figma agreed to end their $20 billion deal this month, which has been stuck in regulatory limbo since it was announced in September 2022.
It’s not our imagination that there are fewer deals from the biggest players. CB Insights reported zero deals in Q3 this year from Big Tech. Compare that with 2019, when there were 10 such deals in Q3, or with 2020, when there were eight.
Image Credits: CB Insights
Perhaps the high cost of borrowing put a damper on the deals we saw in 2023. Long gone are the days of 2020 when the top deals totaled $165 billion. This year it was just $67.7 billion, the lowest total we’ve seen since 2019’s all-time low of $40 billion, the second year we compiled these top deal lists.
It’s worth noting that a good number of the deals this year involved private equity firms either buying companies or selling them off at a nice profit.
Maybe the smaller deals involving AI mattered more, like Atlassian buying Loom for $975 million; Salesforce acquiring Airkit.ai for an undisclosed amount, one of only two small acquisitions this year; or Snowflake nabbing AI search company Neeva, also for an undisclosed amount.
Regardless, here’s what the top 10 enterprise deals looked like this year from cheapest to most costly:
Databricks obtains MosaicML for $1.3B
This year was about large language models and generative AI, and as Databricks looked to focus its data platform on AI, it acquired MosaicML, a large language model developer, for $1.3 billion.
IBM buys Software AG’s StreamSets and webMethods for $2.3B
As the year was closing, IBM took another stab at expanding its hybrid cloud support offerings when it bought a couple of pieces from Software AG, the German enterprise software company owned by private equity firm Silver Lake. Silver Lake got a substantial part of its $2.6 billion investment in Software AG back with this sale.
TPG buys Forcepoint Security for $2.4B
This might not have been the most exciting deal of the year, but it was still a multi-billion-dollar transaction. Private equity firm TPG bought Forcepoint Security’s government security division from Francisco Partners for $2.4 billion.
Vista Equity acquires Duck Creek for $2.6B
In another private equity play, Vista Equity Partners bought Duck Creek Technology, an insurance tech suite vendor, for $2.6 billion, giving the company a SaaS vendor with a solid insurance industry niche. The company, which went public in 2020, eventually sold at a 45% premium.
Thales Aerospace grabs Imperva for $3.6B
French aerospace company Thales bought security company Imperva for $3.6 billion from private equity firm Thoma Bravo. Thoma Bravo had purchased Imperva in 2018 in a $2.1 billion deal, meaning it held on to the firm for five years before turning it around for a $1.5 billion profit.
Clearlake Capital takes Alteryx private for $4.4B
Alteryx, a data processing company that went public in 2017 after raising $1.4 billion (per Crunchbase), was acquired by Clearlake Capital in a $4.4 billion deal at the end of the year, taking the company private.
IBM acquires Apptio for $4.6B
As IBM continues its shift to a hybrid cloud management vendor, the company bought Apptio for $4.6 billion from Vista. Apptio helps manage data in a hybrid system where some is on prem and some in the cloud, which is becoming increasingly important in a world driven by AI. Vista bought Apptio in 2018 for 1.94 billion, representing a nifty $2.7 billion profit over the original price.
Francisco/TPG buys New Relic for $6.5B
New Relic once represented a new generation of application performance management software companies, but as SaaS has lost value in recent years, it became a target for a pair of private equity firms. New Relic was sold off this year to Francisco and TPG (two names we’ve already seen in separate deals on this list) for $6.5 billion.
Silver Lake Partners and Canadian Pension Fund acquire Qualtrics for $12B
In the strange tale of Qualtrics, the company (a once high-flying startup) was sold to SAP in 2018 for $8 billion. The company was spun out just 20 months later and went public in 2021 before being taken private again by a consortium that included Silver Lake Partners for $12 billion in June. It’s been quite a ride.
Cisco buys Splunk for $28B
The biggest deal by far this year goes to the ever acquisitive Cisco. But while the company often makes small acquisitions, it has rarely, if ever, made a mega deal like the one announced in September, when it declared its intention to buy Splunk for $28 billion. It was a huge deal, and in a year where big deals were lacking, it was all alone at the top of the heap.