Tech M&A activity regained momentum in the second half of 2024 and continued into the first quarter of 2025, following a period of caution that extended well beyond the pandemic.
Buyers returned with a more disciplined lens, prioritizing strategic alignment and long-term value creation. For instance, the renewed interest on infrastructure and cybersecurity seems to signal a move toward systems that enable operational resilience in the AI world.
While the deal sizes on this list (ranging from $220 million to $32 billion) exceed the expectation for a mid-market company, they reveal where the market may be heading: toward integration-ready platforms, recurring revenue, and strategic relevance over speculative growth.
L40º selected nine transactions to illustrate how buyer priorities are evolving and to provide a clearer view of what today’s acquirers are looking for.
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Google acquired Wiz, one of the fastest-growing cloud security companies, in a deal that ranks among the largest in cybersecurity history. The move strengthens Google Cloud in a competitive market dominated by AWS and Azure.
As Google put it, the deal supports two fast-moving trends in the AI era: stronger protection for cloud systems and the ability to work seamlessly across multiple cloud providers.
Wiz helps businesses monitor and secure their cloud systems without needing to install additional software, making it faster to adopt and easier to scale. It became a go-to solution for companies needing clear visibility and control over their digital infrastructure. Its growth trajectory and enterprise traction made it a prime strategic fit.
Wiz will become part of Google Cloud’s security division, with its tools expected to integrate into Google’s broader platform for developers and IT teams.
Buyers are investing in security products that are easy to adopt, cloud-native, and enterprise-ready. If your product reduces friction in high-stakes environments, like cloud infrastructure or AI deployment, you can position it as plug-and-play at scale which can unlock interest from potential buyers.
IBM acquired HashiCorp to expand its capabilities in helping companies manage complex IT systems across different cloud providers. The deal reinforces IBM’s long-term focus on hybrid cloud infrastructure, especially for large organizations that need security, automation, and flexibility.
"Organizations globally are looking to deploy modern, hybrid cloud-ready apps, which require automated cloud infrastructure at significant scale," said Rob Thomas, Senior Vice President, IBM Software and Chief Commercial Officer, in a statement.
HashiCorp builds tools that help businesses automate how they set up and secure their digital infrastructure. Its best-known products help teams launch cloud systems more efficiently and manage sensitive data like passwords securely.
These tools align with IBM’s broader strategy, supporting its cloud platform Red Hat, AI software, and enterprise consulting work. Many companies use Red Hat, which IBM acquired in 2019, to run software across both their own data centers and public cloud services.
HashiCorp’s products will continue to work across different cloud platforms but will now benefit from closer integration with IBM’s software stack and customer base.
Automation and compatibility across cloud systems continue to be high-priority topics for strategic acquirers. If your product simplifies infrastructure, especially in multi-cloud or hybrid environments, it becomes a valuable piece of a larger platform strategy.
Cisco acquired SnapAttack to strengthen the security capabilities of its Splunk platform. As cyber threats become more complex, companies need faster and more accurate ways to detect potential breaches. SnapAttack helps security teams stay ahead of evolving threats by making it easier to test, improve, and deploy the tools they use to detect attacks.
The acquisition supports Cisco’s larger goal of building a more modern, intelligent security platform that helps organizations respond faster and with more confidence to real-world threats.
SnapAttack offers software that helps cybersecurity teams identify gaps in their defenses and improve how they detect attacks. It also helps organizations that are moving to Cisco’s Splunk system bring over their existing tools without starting from scratch. These features make SnapAttack especially valuable for large companies that need to manage complex security operations across different platforms.
SnapAttack’s technology will be integrated into Cisco’s Splunk suite. Customers using Splunk will see faster innovation in managing and improving their threat detection tools. Over time, the combined platform is expected to give security teams more control, better visibility, and easier ways to stay protected in a rapidly changing threat environment.
Founders in security or real-time monitoring should note that acquirers are looking for platforms that not only detect threats but also help internal teams improve how they manage and evolve detection itself. If your product enables security teams to move faster or smarter, you’re not just a tool, you’re infrastructure.
SAP acquired WalkMe, a leader in digital adoption platforms, to improve how users interact with business software. As organizations face constant technology change, WalkMe helps employees adapt faster, reducing friction, improving productivity, and increasing the return on software investments.
This move strengthens SAP’s business transformation portfolio by adding tools that help people actually use the technology companies invest in. It complements SAP’s existing platforms like Signavio and LeanIX, which focus on process visibility and optimization.
According to SAP CEO Christian Klein, the goal is simple: help users adopt new systems quickly so businesses can realize value faster.
WalkMe provides on-screen guidance, automation, and real-time support inside any business application, SAP or otherwise. It detects where users struggle and offers in-the-moment help, supporting employees to complete tasks more efficiently. It also supports learning and onboarding at scale, and its new product, WalkMeX, uses AI to recommend next steps to work on directly in the workflow.
Importantly, WalkMe works across a company’s entire application stack, not just SAP tools. This makes it valuable for complex enterprise environments.
WalkMe will continue to support both SAP and non-SAP applications. Over time, its AI and user experience features will be integrated into SAP’s broader offering, including its new AI assistant, Joule. The result is expected to be a more intelligent, people-centered approach to business transformation.
Usability is now a key driver of enterprise value. Buyers aren’t just looking at what software can do, they’re focused on whether teams are actually using it. If your product improves adoption, reduces training time, or supports change management, that’s a strategic wedge worth leaning into.
Nvidia acquired Brev.dev, a startup that helps developers build and scale AI models more easily in the cloud. The move supports Nvidia’s ongoing effort to make its AI hardware and platforms more accessible to the developers who power the ecosystem.
While regulatory scrutiny has slowed some of Nvidia’s larger acquisitions, the company has remained active in acquiring smaller teams with highly focused technology. Brev.dev fit that profile: a lean team with a product that reduces complexity for AI development, an area Nvidia is heavily investing in.
Brev.dev offers a platform that lets developers launch and manage AI training environments quickly, without the usual setup overhead. It helps users find the right GPU resources at the best price, making it easier and more cost-effective to train models at scale.
The product was designed for simplicity and flexibility, giving developers the ability to start small and grow quickly, using Nvidia hardware from the start.
Brev.dev is expected to become part of Nvidia’s AI Enterprise toolkit, giving developers an easier on-ramp to GPU-accelerated AI workflows. Over time, its features may be embedded across Nvidia’s broader developer ecosystem, helping more teams launch and scale AI products faster.
This deal shows that even in a high-profile, regulated environment, buyers like Nvidia are actively pursuing small, focused companies that solve real developer pain points. If your product lowers friction for technical users in fast-moving markets like AI, it doesn’t have to be large to be valuable.
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Blackstone and Vista Equity Partners completed their acquisition of Smartsheet in early 2025, taking the company private in a move that highlights continued private equity interest in mature, enterprise-grade software. Smartsheet’s strong recurring revenue, broad enterprise adoption, and potential for operational optimization made it a compelling platform investment.
The buyers emphasized Smartsheet’s growing role in helping companies manage work at scale, especially as AI and collaboration tools become central to modern enterprise productivity.
Smartsheet provides a work management platform used to coordinate projects, automate workflows, and increase team productivity. The product is widely adopted across industries and is trusted by more than 85% of Fortune 500 companies.
Its user-friendly design and embedded enterprise use cases make it core to how many organizations plan, track, and execute their day-to-day operations, positioning it well for deeper investment and international expansion under PE ownership.
Following the deal, Smartsheet is now privately held and will continue to operate under its current name. Blackstone and Vista have signaled plans to invest in product innovation, enhance AI-driven features, and expand globally to accelerate Smartsheet’s position as a leading collaborative work management platform.
The company’s stock is no longer publicly traded, and the leadership team will work alongside its new owners to pursue long-term growth with more operational flexibility.
For SaaS founders, this deal reinforces that enterprise software platforms with strong user adoption, retention and consistent revenue remain top-tier assets for private equity. You don’t need to be the most well-known product, just one that your customers rely on every day.
MongoDB acquired Voyage AI to strengthen its platform with built-in, high-accuracy search and retrieval. In AI applications, retrieval refers to the process of finding the most relevant information from a data source so that the model can generate accurate, context-aware results. This is a critical step in reducing hallucinations and improving reliability, particularly in use cases like chat interfaces, agents, and enterprise search.
Today, developers often rely on separate tools for embedding, vector storage, and reranking to support retrieval. This fragmented approach adds complexity and cost. By integrating Voyage AI, MongoDB aims to simplify the stack, offering a unified platform that helps developers build smarter applications more efficiently and with better performance.
Voyage AI builds high-performing models that enable AI systems to better understand and rank information. Its embedding and reranking models are recognized for their accuracy and efficiency, with customers like Anthropic, LangChain, and Harvey already using them to power critical retrieval tasks.
These capabilities are especially valuable in enterprise settings, where performance and precision are non-negotiable.
Voyage AI will be integrated into MongoDB Atlas in multiple phases. Initially, its models will remain accessible via existing APIs and cloud marketplaces. Next, core features such as automatic embedding and native reranking will be directly embedded into MongoDB’s vector search offering, streamlining development for teams building AI-powered applications. The roadmap also includes support for multimodal data (text, image, video), prompt-based customization, and lifecycle management for embeddings.
For developers, this means AI search and retrieval will soon feel as seamless as running a database query. For enterprises, it enables more reliable AI use cases across vast amounts of unstructured data, without the need for a fragmented architecture.
This acquisition highlights a growing reality: AI success isn’t just about the model, it’s about the infrastructure beneath it. If your product reduces pain points in AI development, especially around search, data access, or workflow integration, you may be solving one of the next big bottlenecks in the stack.
Drata acquired SafeBase to expand its position in the trust management space by combining two complementary strengths: compliance automation and customer-facing security transparency.
As enterprise expectations around risk, compliance, and third-party security grow, the combined platform will help organizations move from reactive oversight to proactive trust building.
Together, Drata and SafeBase are forming what they describe as the most comprehensive trust management platform on the market, which simplifies security reviews, accelerates sales cycles, and helps companies demonstrate compliance and credibility at scale.
Drata is known for automating compliance workflows, streamlining audits, and helping companies manage both internal and vendor risk. Its platform is used by over 7,000 customers, including Notion.
SafeBase brings a complementary layer: AI-powered security questionnaire automation and customer-facing trust centers. These allow security teams to respond faster to inbound due diligence and give sales teams a powerful tool to accelerate trust in the buying process. Companies like OpenAI, LinkedIn, and CrowdStrike use SafeBase to manage and communicate their security posture to enterprise buyers.
Together, the two platforms cover the full spectrum of governance, risk, and compliance (GRC), creating a seamless experience from internal controls to external communication.
SafeBase will be integrated into Drata’s platform in phases, starting with unified access to both toolsets. Future enhancements will include AI-powered trust centers, faster automation for security reviews, and broader support for new regulatory frameworks like the EU AI Act and ISO 42001.
The combined company plans to scale across larger enterprise accounts and international markets while continuing to support high-growth startups and mid-market teams.
This deal reflects that trust and compliance are now critical to sales, partnerships, and customer confidence. If your product helps companies earn or demonstrate trust in a measurable way, especially in security, privacy, or governance, it’s likely to attract interest from both strategic acquirers and modern GRC platforms.
ServiceNow acquired Moveworks to strengthen its AI-powered platform with a more intuitive front-end experience for employees. Moveworks brings conversational AI and enterprise search capabilities that make it easier for workers to get fast answers, complete tasks, and interact with systems across departments like IT, HR, sales, and customer support.
The acquisition supports ServiceNow’s broader push to embed AI assistants across the enterprise, enabling end-users (not just IT teams) to drive workflows, access insights, and get help from a single, chat-based entry point.
Moveworks is best known for its AI assistant, which integrates with enterprise systems to resolve support tickets, answer HR or payroll questions, and provide real-time sales or customer service information. It’s widely adopted among large enterprises, with customers including Siemens, Unilever, Instacart, and Palo Alto Networks.
These functions will enhance ServiceNow’s workflow automation engine, making it easier to deploy AI across everyday business operations.
Moveworks will be integrated into the ServiceNow platform, beginning with unified search and self-service tools that give employees a single point of access for all enterprise requests. Over time, ServiceNow plans to roll out broader support for department-specific assistants in areas like finance, CRM, HR, and IT.
The combined capabilities will help ServiceNow accelerate AI adoption across its existing customer base and strengthen its position in the growing market for enterprise AI assistants.
ServiceNow’s acquisition of Moveworks reflects a clear trend: Companies are no longer just investing in back-end AI infrastructure—they’re looking for AI tools that improve how employees interact with systems and data. If your product improves user experience, reduces support load, or drives real business outcomes through AI interfaces, you’re operating in increasingly strategic territory.
Together, these transactions provide a snapshot of recent activity and point to how strategic and financial buyers are prioritizing value in the current environment.
Here are the patterns we notice:
A majority of these deals targeted core systems rather than customer-facing applications. Buyers are investing in platforms that improve security, compliance, automation, and developer workflows, the foundational layers that support scale and resilience.
Acquisitions like Wiz and SafeBase highlight how security, transparency, and control are becoming critical to enterprise buyers. Products that help companies prove they’re trustworthy may be commanding premium valuations.
The Smartsheet acquisition shows that PE firms are still pursuing scaled SaaS businesses, especially those with recurring revenue, strong customer retention, and room for operational improvement.
Buyers aren’t just chasing AI hype. They’re looking for AI that solves specific problems and fits within existing workflows. Applied AI is proving more valuable than standalone models without clear adoption paths. The focus is on tools that enhance search, automation, or decision-making.
At L40°, we analyze what’s behind top deals: how strategic and financial buyers define value, where the market is moving, and what that means for SaaS founders.
Acquisitions in this report highlight buyers' priorities in the current market. For tech founders, these signals matter as they shape not only how a buyer perceives your company but also when and why they engage.
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