2020-07-03 Berkery Noyes Releases Online and Mobile Industry M&A Report For Half Year 2020

NEW YORK — July 3, 2020 — Berkery Noyes, an independent mid-market investment bank, today released its first half 2020 mergers and acquisitions trend report for the Online and Mobile Industry. The report analyzes M&A activity during the first half of 2020 and compares it with the four previous six-month periods from 2018 to 2019.

Total transaction volume decreased seven percent on a half year basis. Overall value fell 48 percent, from $149.78 billion to $78.57 billion. However, value stayed relatively constant compared to first half 2019. The median revenue multiple declined from 2.8x to 2.2x, while the median EBITDA multiple moved downward from 15.3x to 12.5x.

Three of the industry’s top five largest deals in first Half 2020 occurred in the finance vertical: Morgan Stanley’s announced acquisition of E-Trade, an online brokerage company, for $13.13 billion; Intuit’s announced acquisition of Credit Karma, a personal finance company that offers free credit reports, scores, and insights, for $7.1 billion; and Visa’s announced acquisition of Plaid Technologies, which develops and creates API’s for banking data, for $5.3 billion.

The number of transactions in the mobile application subsector increased ten percent during the half year period, with a total of 202 acquisitions in first half 2020. Notable mobile-based deals in the healthcare vertical year-to date included:

  • Walmart’s acquisition of CareZone’s medication management software, which includes an app that lets users create medication lists, provides refill reminders and helps facilitate medication delivery;
  • The DNA Company’s acquisition of My Pain Sensei, an AI-based digital therapeutics app; and
  • HealthStream’s acquisition of NurseGrid, which allows nurses to manage and share their schedules, swap shifts, communicate with one another, and coordinate work and non-work activities through the NurseGrid app.

Regarding other sectors covered in the report, transaction activity in both the E-Content and E-Marketing & Search segments fell nine percent in first half 2020. M&A activity in the E-Commerce segment decreased six percent. Meanwhile, the number of deals in both the SaaS & Cloud and Communications segments decreased five percent.

A copy of the ONLINE AND MOBILE INDUSTRY M&A REPORT FOR HALF YEAR 2020 is available at the Berkery Noyes website.