Full Year 2024 Software Industry Trends

2024 KEY HIGHLIGHTS

The highest value deal in 2024 was Synopsys’ announced acquisition of ANSYS, the global leader in engineering simulation, for $32.6 billion.

Three of the top ten transactions in 2024 were in the engineering software space, including the $10.1 billion acquisition of Altair Engineering by Siemens, the $5.7 billion acquisition of Altium by Renesas Electronics Corporation, and the aforementioned acquisition of ANSYS by Synopsys.

The most active acquirer in 2024 was Constellation Software, a Canadian company that acquires, manages and builds vertical market software, with at least 30 transactions through its affiliated businesses.

There were 551 financially sponsored transactions with an aggregate value of $99.87 billion, representing 28 percent of the total volume and 41 percent of the total value, respectively.

2024 KEY TRENDS

Total transaction volume in 2024 fell slightly by 3 percent over 2023, from 2,030 to 1,970.

Total transaction value in 2024 increased by 35 percent over 2023 from $182 billion to $246 billion.

The market segment with the highest total value in 2024 was Niche Software with $137 billion in transactions.

M&A MARKET OVERVIEW

Berkery Noyes tracked 6,450 Software transactions between 2022 and 2024, of which 1,050 disclosed financial terms, and calculated the aggregate value to be $704 billion. Based on known transaction values, we project values of 5,400 undisclosed transactions to be $172.7 billion, totaling $877.1 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 3.4x revenue and 15.9x EBITDA.

Over the past three years, deals in the $10-$160 million range received a median enterprise value multiple of 2.5x revenue, compared to 6.3x revenue for those in the $160 million and above range.