Amid the on-going coronavirus pandemic, 2021 followed in the footsteps of its predecessor, continuing to be an unpredictable, and at times incredibly difficult, year. But one thing that stayed constant was the steady flow of mergers and acquisitions (M&A) across the tech sector.
According to research by Global Data, global tech M&A deals had already neared $3 trillion by Q3, largely supported by the tech, media, and telecom sectors. Although nothing rivalled Xilinx’s $35 billion acquisition of Advanced Micro Devices in 2020, last year did see Intuit buy Mailchimp for $12 billion and Square splash out a princely sum — $29 billion — for Afterpay.
GlobalData
Global mergers and acquisitions value.
As for whether 2022 will maintain last year’s pace, early signs seem to suggest there will be no slowing of big deals across the industry, with cybersecurity and collaboration software already proving to be hot areas.
Here are the biggest enterprise technology acquisitions of 2022 so far, in reverse chronological order:
May 11: Salesforce acquires Troops.ai
Salesforce has announced that it will acquire Troops.ai for an undisclosed amount. Founded in 2016, Troops.ai is a revenue and communications platform that uses Slack and Microsoft Teams bots to surface CRM data from platforms such as Salesforce.
In a statement, Salesforce said that Troops and its team will become part of Slack—which it acquired in 2020—when the deal closes in 2023.
“We’ve been a leader in the industry, working with some of the fastest-growing companies in the world, including Salesforce and Slack,” Troops’ CEO and cofounder Dan Reich wrote in a blog post. “We’ve done this by delivering real-time insights from systems of record like Salesforce to systems of engagement like Slack, bringing together information and actions that customer-facing teams need to close new deals and support existing customers.”