Full Year 2021 Software Industry Trends

2021 Key Highlights

The four largest transactions in 2021 were healthcare related. These four transactions, with a combined value of $79.30 billion, accounted for one-fifth of the industry’s aggregate value during the year.

The highest value deal in 2021 was Oracle’s announced acquisition of Cerner, an electronic health records vendor, for $29.16 billion. This was the largest acquisition ever completed by Oracle.

There were 755 financially sponsored transactions with an aggregate value of $168.42 billion, representing 26 percent of the total volume and 42 percent of the total value, respectively.

2021 Key Trends

Total transaction volume in 2021 increased by 25 percent over 2020, from 2,275 to 2,854.

Total transaction value in 2021 doubled over 2020, from $200.68 billion to $401.01 billion.

The median revenue multiple rose from 3.2x in 2020 to 5.1x in 2021. The median EBITDA multiple improved from 15.9x in 2020 to 18.9x in 2021.

The segment with the largest rise in volume in 2021 over 2020 was Infrastructure, which gained 32 percent, from 277 to 365 deals.

M&A Market Overview

Berkery Noyes tracked 7,548 Software transactions between 2019 and 2021, of which 1,408 disclosed financial terms, and calculated the aggregate value to be $567.98 billion. Based on known transaction values, we project values of 6,140 undisclosed transactions to be $205.35 billion, totaling $773.33 billion worth of transactions tracked over the past three years.

Disclosed median enterprise value multiples for all segments combined in this report during the last 36 months were 3.9x revenue and 16.7.x EBITDA.