Insights

The global software sector remains one of the most active sectors, with ~$17B in financing volume and ~$22B in M&A volume during Q3 ’19.
Sector Report: Software Q3 2019
EXECUTIVE SUMMARY
- The global software sector remains one of the most active sectors, with ~$17Bn in financing volume and ~$22Bn in M&A volume during Q3 ’19
- 222 financings in Q3 ‘19 is 19% higher than the number of financings in the same period in ’18
- 384 M&A transactions in Q3 ‘19 is 6% higher than the 363 deals consummated during the same period in ’18
- Significant M&A activity in Q3 driven by acquisitions in the cybersecurity sector; Broadcom’s $10.7Bn acquisition of Symantec’s Enterprise Security Assets and VMware’s $2.1Bn acquisition of Carbon Black
- Financial Software had one of the highest financing volume counts in Q3 ‘19 led by the $470MM financing of N26 and $400MMfinancing of Nubank; the Operations Management sector also saw a high volume of financings
- Software sector trading performance remained healthy, with overall IGV tech-software index outperforming the S&P 500 by 1.9% over the past twelve months
- The Vertical software index has grown 19.5% over the last 12 months, outperforming all other software sub segments
- Technical Application companies traded at the highest average multiples of 8.8x and 27.3x for 2019 Revenue and EBITDA, respectively
- Overall momentum and growth rates remain healthy in the software space with Business Intelligence and Analytics leading the 2019E/2018A revenue growth at 30.2%
Select Q3 Active Investors
- Accel
- Andreessen Horowitz
- Battery
- Bessemer Venture Partners
- General Catalyst
- Greylock Partners
- Insight Partners
- Kleiner Perkins
- NEA
- Norwest Venture Partners
- Redpoint
- Sequoia
Select Q3 Active Buyers
- Adobe
- Broadcom
- Cisco
- IBM
- j2 Global
- Microsoft
- Oracle
- Salesforce
- Symantec
- Thomson Reuters
- VMware
GCA Sector Coverage
- AI / Machine Learning
- BI / Analytics
- Collaboration Software
- CRM
- Cybersecurity
- Enterprise Content Management
- Enterprise Resource Planning
- Infrastructure Management
- Marketing Technology
- SaaS / Cloud Enablement
- Supply Chain Management
- Vertically Focused Software