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Hampleton Partners’ new Autotech & Mobility M&A Report has revealed strong dealmaking energy in the market. Transaction numbers soared last year to match a previous peak in 2023, with 2H2025 racking up the third-biggest half-year deal haul on record. The report particularly highlights the significance of the electric vehicle (EV) transition as a deal driver, with Michael Brecht – Sector Principal for Mobility & Infrastructure at Hampleton Partners – saying: 

“The sustained takeup of EVs in important territories like Germany and the UK has contributed to the robust level of buyer confidence we’re seeing right now. The burgeoning transition to electric cars, buses and trucks is incentivising the acquisition of innovators in the EV ecosystem, from developers of AI-enabled onboard diagnostics to EV charging infrastructure solutions providers.”

The new Digital Commerce M&A report from Hampleton Partners, the international M&A and corporate finance advisory firm for software and technology companies, has revealed a dealmaking surge in the sector, with 2,683 transactions recorded in 2025 – almost 20% higher than the previous year’s tally.

Valuation multiples have also risen, reflecting buyer enthusiasm for online retailers, e-commerce platforms and marketing agencies which can demonstrate tangible efficiency gains through the integration of generative and agentic AI. However, the commoditisation of AI means businesses in the sector will be increasingly expected to distinguish themselves in other ways in order to command valuation premiums. 

Hampleton Partners, the international M&A and corporate finance advisory firm specializing in the technology sector, is pleased to welcome Katrin Cihlar as Managing Director and Head of Financial Sponsor Coverage.

With more than 20 years of transaction and private equity experience, Katrin Cihlar has advised on numerous domestic and cross-border deals throughout her career, building long-standing relationships with leading financial sponsors. Her expertise spans transactions across the software, digital commerce, automotive, and industrial sectors.

The newly-published IT & Business Services M&A market report from Hampleton Partners has revealed the most important trends influencing acquisitions and investments in the sector right now. Among them is cybersecurity, which the report describes as “one of the major M&A momentum makers, with identity and observability emerging as core platform pillars.”

Identity is the new frontline in cybersecurity, with rapid cloud adoption, the normalisation of remote working, and the proliferation of complex tech stacks across user devices resulting in the dissolution of traditional network perimeters. The development of this new digital environment has led cybercriminals and state-backed hackers to pivot from exploiting infrastructure vulnerabilities and deploying brute-force attacks on firewalls, to targeting identity authentication flows. In other words, logging in rather than breaking in.

The latest Autotech & Mobility M&A report from Hampleton Partners, the international M&A and corporate finance advisory firm for software and technology companies, reveals bullish M&A activity in the sector, matching the record peak seen in 2023.

A top momentum maker highlighted by the report is the increasing adoption of EV – not only by consumers but by logistics companies and public transport authorities. With electric truck and bus registrations on the rise in Europe, the burgeoning demand for EV charging infrastructure, including high-power charging, is spurring consolidation in what is still a highly fragmented market. 

The latest IT & Business Services M&A report from Hampleton Partners, the international M&A and corporate finance advisory firm for software and technology companies, reveals a continued resurgence in deal momentum which began in early 2025, following a temporary slowdown in 2024.   

While dealmaking remains strong, valuation trends and target selection patterns indicate that buyers are increasingly disciplined in their M&A strategies, filtering for targets which demonstrate platform completeness, proof of profitability, and compliance readiness, and which can be easily integrated post-acquisition. 

The enterprise software sector continues to boom. According to the latest Enterprise Software M&A Report 1H2026 from Hampleton Partners, 2,452 deals were completed in 2025 – the highest annual total ever, with a disclosed transaction value of USD 147 billion. In the second half of the year alone, 1,231 deals were closed, marking, together with the first half, the highest deal volume ever recorded in a single calendar year.

Miro Parizek, Founder and Senior Partner at Hampleton Partners, comments: “This record pace is being driven by both strategic and financial buyers. Strategic investors are using M&A as stealth R&D to expand their platforms and acquire top talent, while private equity investors pursue aggressive buy-and-build strategies, particularly in emerging markets.”

Hampleton Partners, the international M&A and corporate finance advisory firm for software, technology, and autotech companies, welcomes Horst Bardehle as Sector Principal for the Automotive Sector. With more than 30 years of leadership experience in the automotive industry, Bardehle brings extensive expertise across product development, corporate and production management, sales, and complex transformation and restructuring initiatives.

The ubiquity of US tech, from the backend infrastructure provided by Amazon Web Services to the Microsoft and OpenAI products we use daily, is something most consumers take for granted. Certainly, non-US markets are vital to the American giants. For example, Microsoft had non-US revenues of USD 137bn in 2025, compared to domestic revenues of USD 145bn, while Meta generated USD 122bn from non-US markets compared to “only” USD 74.8bn domestically.

It stands to reason that the American tech giants, and the US government, are happy with the status quo and less than thrilled about EU regulations in the tech space. But European business insiders and policymakers have long been voicing objections to Europe’s dependence on tech stacks from other parts of the world.

While the vast majority of tech startups are bootstrapped, there’s no denying that venture capital can be crucial to the growth of businesses which require significant R&D expenditure or seek to rapidly scale in highly competitive markets. Companies specialising in AI, biotech, quantum computing, defencetech and spacetech fall into the former category, while enterprise SaaS platforms and fintech companies are in the latter.

But a long-running pain point for Europe’s tech landscape has been the restrained level of venture capital relative to other regions. Take the VC gap with the United States, with firms based in the EU receiving USD 1.4tn less VC funding than US counterparts between 2013 and 2022. The problem is particularly marked when it comes to later stage funding rounds, incentivising scale-ups to seek US investors and/or relocate their headquarters.