Full Year 2023 Online & Mobile Industry Trends

2023 KEY HIGHLIGHTS

The largest deal in the E-Commerce segment in 2023 was Blackstone’s $2.3 billion acquisition of Rover, the world’s largest online marketplace for pet care. In a similar transaction, Mayfair Equity Partners backed a $100 million management buyout of TrustedHousesitters, a subscription-based pet-sitting and travel community.

There were 584 financially sponsored transactions with an aggregate value of $64.78 billion, representing 23 percent of the total volume and 41 percent of the total value, respectively.

2023 KEY TRENDS

Total transaction volume in 2023 decreased by 19 percent over 2022, from 3,260 to 2,650.

Total transaction value in 2023 fell 57 percent over 2022, from $367 billion to $158 billion.

The median revenue multiple declined from 2.9x in 2022 to 2.1x in 2023. The median EBITDA multiple moved slightly downward from 11.0x in 2022 to 10.6x in 2023.

The segment with the largest increase in value in 2023 over 2022 wasE-Marketing & Search, which increased from $16.23 billion to $17.32 billion.

M&A MARKET OVERVIEW

Berkery Noyes tracked 9,423 Online & Mobile transactions between 2021 and 2023, of which 1,741 disclosed financial terms, and calculated the aggregate value to be $694.69 billion. Based on known transaction values, we project values of 7,682 undisclosed transactions to be $187 billion, totaling $881.68 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 2.9x revenue and 11.8x EBITDA.

Over the past three years, deals in the $10-$20 million range received a median enterprise value multiple of 2.2x revenue, compared to 6.0x revenue for those in the $160 million and above range.