1st Half 2021 Software Industry Trends

1ST HALF 2021 KEY HIGHLIGHTS

Three of the industry’s top five largest deals year-to-date were healthcare related.

Along these lines Microsoft announced its acquisition of Nuance Communications, a cloud-based speech recognition and conversational AI company used by healthcare providers and others as Microsoft looks to accelerate its healthcare cloud strategy, for $19.7 billion; Optum announced its merger with Change Healthcare Corporation, which provides software and data analytics, technology-enabled services, and revenue cycle management offerings. for $13.44 billion; and Datavant announced its merger with CIOX Health, a clinical data network, for $7 billion.

There were 389 financially sponsored transactions with an aggregate value of $91.72 billion, representing 26 percent of the total volume and 48 percent of the total value, respectively.

1ST HALF 2021 KEY TRENDS

Total transaction volume in 1st Half 2021 increased by 22 percent over 2nd Half 2020, from 1,217 to 1,486.

Total transaction value in 1st Half 2021 gained 25 percent over 2nd Half 2020, from $153 billion to $191.09 billion.

The median revenue multiple rose from 3.7x in 2nd Half 2020 to 5.4x in 1st Half 2021. The median EBITDA multiple fell from 18.1x in 2nd Half 2020 to 12.2x in 1st Half 2021, which was in line with its 1st Half 2020 level.

The segment with the largest rise in volume in 1st Half 2021 over 2nd Half 2020 was Niche Software, which is targeted to specific vertical markets, with a 26 percent improvement, from 635 to 801 transactions.

M&A MARKET OVERVIEW

Berkery Noyes tracked 6,180 Software transactions between 2019 and 1st Half 2021, of which 1,137 disclosed financial terms, and calculated the aggregate transaction value to be 410.74 billion. Based on known transaction values, we project values of 5,043 undisclosed transactions to be $152.66 billion, totaling $563.40 billion worth of transactions tracked over the past two and a half years.

Disclosed median enterprise value multiples for all segments combined in this report during the last 30 months were 3.7x revenue and 14.3x EBITDA.