1st Half 2026 Software Industry Trends

1st HALF 2026 KEY HIGHLIGHTS

The two largest transactions in 1st Half 2026 were from SpaceX, which acquired xAI, the artificial intelligence startup behind generative AI chatbot Grok, Grokipedia, and the social network X, for $250 billion, and Cursor, a popular AI code editor, for $60 billion.

There were 241 financially sponsored transactions with an aggregate value of $30.66 billion, representing 23 percent of the total volume and 7 percent of the total value.

1st HALF 2026 KEY TRENDS

Total transaction volume in 1st Half 2026 decreased by 4 percent over 2nd Half 2025, from 1079 to 1035.

In terms of acquirer type, strategic acquirer volume increased 2 percent over a half year basis, from 779 to 794. Private equity acquirer volume decreased 20 percent, from 300 to 241.

Total transaction value in 1st Half 2026 increased 64 percent over 2nd Half 2025, from $253.69 billion to $416.07 billion.

The median revenue multiple decreased from 3.4x in 2nd Half 2025 to 2.9x in 1st Half 2026.

M&A MARKET OVERVIEW

Berkery Noyes tracked 5,198 Software transactions between 2024 and 1st Half 2026, of which 1,070 disclosed financial terms, and calculated the aggregate transaction value to be $921.49 billion. Based on known transaction values, we project values of 4,128 undisclosed transactions to be $176.45 billion, totaling $1.1 trillion worth of transactions tracked over the past two and a half years.

Transactions from 1st Half 2024 to 1st Half 2026 with enterprise values above $160 million received a median revenue multiple of 5.1x, whereas those in the $10-$160 million range garnered a median revenue multiple of 2.6x.

Disclosed median enterprise value multiples for all segments combined in this report during the last 30 months were 3.2x revenue and 15.1x EBITDA.