1st Half 2020 Software Industry Trends

1ST HALF 2020 KEY HIGHLIGHTS

Three of the industry’s top five largest deals year-to-date occurred in the Infrastructure segment: Insight Venture Partners’ acquisition of Veeam Software, a cloud-focused backup and disaster recovery services provider, for $5 billion; a Symphony Technology Group led consortium’s announced acquisition of Dell Technologies’ RSA Security business for $2.08 billion; and Advent International and Crosspoint Capital Partners’ announced acquisition of ForeScout Technologies, which develops device visibility, control, and cybersecurity solutions, for $1.72 billion.

There were 252 financially sponsored transactions with an aggregate value of $22.08 billion, representing 24 percent of the total volume and 44 percent of the total value, respectively.

1ST HALF 2020 KEY TRENDS

Total transaction volume in 1st Half 2020 decreased by ten percent over 2nd Half 2019, from 1,162 to 1,051.

Total transaction value in 1st Half 2020 fell by 38 percent over 2nd Half 2019, from $80.33 billion to $50.19 billion.

The median revenue multiple declined from 3.7x in 2nd Half 2019 to 3.0x in 1st Half 2020. The median EBITDA multiple moved downward from 15.3x to 11.2x.

The segment with the largest rise in volume in 1st Half 2020 over 2nd Half 2019 was Consumer Software with a nine percent gain, from 109 to 119 transactions.

M&A MARKET OVERVIEW

Berkery Noyes tracked 5,697 Software transactions between 2018 and 1st Half 2020, of which 1,029 disclosed financial terms, and calculated the aggregate transaction value to be $338.56 billion. Based on known transaction values, we project values of 4,668 undisclosed transactions to be $117.28 billion, totaling $455.84 billion worth of transactions tracked over the past two and a half years.

Transactions from 1st Half 2018 to 1st Half 2020 with enterprise values above $160 million received a median revenue multiple of 5.3x, whereas those in the $10-160 million range garnered a median revenue multiple of 3.2x.

Disclosed median enterprise value multiples for all segments combined in this report during the last 30 months were 3.2x revenue and 13.8x EBITDA.