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The decline in deal counts in the first half of 2026 signals not weakness but selectivity. According to the latest Enterprise Software M&A Market Report 2H2026 from Hampleton Partners, 1,132 transactions were recorded in 1H2026, down roughly 8% from 1,231 in the second half of 2025. However, Valuations are climbing: the trailing 30-month median EV/Revenue edged up to 3.8x, while the median EV/EBITDA reached a new high of 18.8x.
Miro Parizek, Founder and Senior Partner at Hampleton Partners, comments: “This is a disciplined market, not a weak one. Strategic buyers are operating close to record levels and are using M&A deliberately to add capability and talent. Private equity, by contrast, has become more selective: fewer deals, but capital concentrated on the few, defensible assets for which high earnings multiples are paid. The narrative around AI has matured as well. Buyers no longer pay a premium for an AI label, but for the trust, governance and reliability around the software, the part that is worth far more than the code itself.”

After several years of subdued deal activity, the automotive industry is shifting gears. Hampleton Partners, the international M&A and corporate finance advisory firm for technology-driven sectors, has released its Automotive M&A Market Report 2H 2026, offering a comprehensive view of how innovation, electrification, and global investment trends are fueling renewed momentum across the sector.

The report identifies early signs of recovery in transaction volumes and valuations. Deal activity edged up to 109 transactions in 1H 2026, while the trailing 30-month EV/EBITDA multiple increased to 10.1x after a sustained period of decline. Although it remains too early to call a full rebound, the data suggests that market conditions are stabilizing and investor confidence is returning.

The latest Digital Commerce M&A report from Hampleton Partners, the international M&A and corporate finance advisory firm for software and technology companies, shows dealmaking in the sector settling into a steadier rhythm, with transaction volume and valuation multiples moving into a comparatively flat pattern following the sharper swings of the past two years.

Buyers are increasingly pricing deals against demonstrated performance rather than the broader promise of automation, a shift that points to the sector entering a more disciplined phase after several years of rapid, AI-driven speculation. Underlying trading conditions softened early in the half before improving through the second quarter, a pattern consistent with deal activity building through the periods ahead rather than a market in structural decline.

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, shows a market that has grown more discerning without growing less active. Dealmaking has eased from its early-2025 highs, yet activity remains well ahead of the low point seen in 2024, and buyer confidence in the strongest assets continues to build.

Rather than a retreat from sellers, the report identifies a more consequential shift one layer beneath valuation: how consideration is structured. The earnout has returned in force, with acquirers increasingly willing to meet a seller’s asking price, but only by deferring a meaningful share of it against future performance. All-cash structures have become noticeably less common, with the difference absorbed by management rollover and hybrid cash-and-stock arrangements.

Despite the imposition of tariffs on their EV imports, Chinese OEMs have continued to thrive in Europe. To take a few prominent examples, BYD, Chery and Leapmotor saw year-on-year EU registrations surge by 153%, 267% and 559% in Q1 2026. And Chinese carmakers’ share of the larger European market, including the EFTA nations and the UK, has risen to 7.3%, up from 3.7% in 2025.

This presence is likely to accelerate further as many Chinese OEMs move beyond export-led strategies to localise manufacture within Europe itself, either by establishing their own production facilities or embarking on joint ventures with existing European companies to build vehicles locally. 

Most of the automotive supply chain has spent the past half-decade adapting to the breakneck pace of disruption. The complex ramifications of the EV revolution, Covid-era shortages, semiconductor constraints, tariff volatility and persistent geopolitical uncertainty are among the factors which have caused many suppliers to delay long-term strategic decisions.

However, the cost pressures brought by significant structural forces have made these decisions unavoidable. 

You’ve worked hard to build your company and now recognise the signs that it’s a good time to sell. This pivotal moment raises an important question: who should you sell to?

There are two main categories of buyer, strategic and financial, and the distinction between them isn’t simply academic. Your choice of acquirer will impact the deal structure and your involvement after the deal is closed. That’s why we’ve put together this concise guide to these buyer categories and what each entails for the M&A process. 

Every year sees brave new buzzwords enter the tech discourse, and one that’s generated a large amount of chatter in 2026 is “SaaSpocalypse”. The term sprang tp prominence in February as shares in enterprise software companies dramatically tumbled, with legacy behemoths like Salesforce and ServiceNow seeing their stocks abruptly nosedive. 

This was a reaction to the paradigm shift presented by the rise of AI agents, which are able to execute workflows that were once the domain of cloud-based SaaS tools. If businesses can delegate marketing, contract drafting, data management, customer engagement and other critical tasks to autonomous agents, and even vibe code new tools as and when they’re required, why should they pay subscriptions to SaaS companies? 

An earn-out is an acquisition model which sees the buyer of a business pay only a proportion of the purchase price when closing the deal, with the rest of it coming only if the business achieves certain KPIs. These might be EBITDA or revenue targets, and/or non-financial benchmarks such as the successful completion of beta testing and maintaining a specific percentage of clients. 

This deal structure has become increasingly common. In fact, between January and October 2025, M&A transactions with earn-outs amounted to USD 142bn globally, higher than any full-year since 2021. Filtering for private equity and venture capital exits with earn-out components there was an even more significant rise, with this cohort achieving its highest value since 2018. Let’s look at what’s been propelling the popularity of earn-outs, and why tech company owners should take note.

Selling a company is rarely straightforward, and even experienced founders can make avoidable missteps which can have a knock-on effect on valuation, leverage, or deal certainty. Here are some of the most common ones which all company owners should be aware of as they make plans for an exit.