Benchmark International 
Benchmark International 
Technology-related mergers and acquisitions are set to remain robust over the next 12 months, according to the recent semi-annual leaders’ poll from law firm Morrison & Foerster’s global M&A team.
In spite of something of a slowing-down of the M&A market generally in recent months, with tech deals globally having fallen in the first three quarters of the year and a deal-making plateau predicted in some quarters, tech leaders are of the opinion that deals in their sector will hold fast for the coming 12 months.
In the survey, just over half of tech leaders who were polled said that they were confident that tech deals would be buoyant over the next year (compared with the previous year), while just 19% predicted a slowdown.
The growth trajectory is expected to hold firm given new tech innovations and healthy private equity spending, according to Morrison & Foerster. It’s worth noting also that the M&A KnowledgeBase from 451 Research also acknowledges 2017 as the first year ever on record where private equity firms have announced more tech sector acquisitions than public companies.
In the sector itself, artificial intelligence and machine learning are predicted to be the particularly strong drivers of tech M&A over the next few years, outweighing the ‘Internet of Things’ which drove the highest-value deals in 2016, of which over half involved ‘connected car’ technologies.
2016 already brought an all-time high for tech M&A globally, with cloud computing, social networking, smart mobility, cyber-security and big data analytics performing particularly strongly and helping the sector neatly out-pace other markets.
So, with activity predicted to remain strong, keep an eye on tech deals as the ones to watch again this coming year.
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