Introduction
Since we started, one of the key aims of the team at tech.eu has been to track all of the funding rounds and exits in Europe, providing the most comprehensive and accurate record and analysis of the European technology scene.
We do this by meticulously monitoring 120+ sources in Europe and across 10+ languages - including Israel, Russia, the Balkans, Norway, Switzerland, Turkey and other countries we consider part of the European technology industry.
Last year, we published our first ever paid for report, analysing the full year of 2014 for exits, which proved to be a very valuable resource for corporates, M&A firms, venture capitalists and other prominent actors in Europe’s ecosystem.
2015 proved to be an even busier year for European tech M&A’s, meaning this time around there was more data to crunch, and more analysis to be done, but most importantly, we are now able to compare 2015 to the previous year, providing us with a sense of how the activity is evolving. This forms the backbone of the new report we are releasing today and what follows is a taster of some of the interesting data points we pulled out.
You can purchase the full report here for just £400.
Key take-aways from the tech.eu European Tech Exits Report for 2015
Despite concerns about the market persisting throughout, and several high-profile IPOs being postponed, 2015 eventually proved to be a stellar year for exits for European tech companies. Both the amount and the number of exits significantly increased from 2014, as the momentum in the European tech scene continued apace.
In fact, the percentage of disclosed deals actually went down from 68.01% to 65.1% in 2015, indicating that the 71% increase of the value of exits in 2015 is likely to be even higher than the headline number.
This was driven by a number of huge exits such as Vimplecom, EE, and o2, as Europe continued to benefit from its larger telecom and cables companies seeing exits, but also from a number of big-money digital tech exits, most notably King and Worldpay.
Sticking out like a sore thumb though was the fact that only 30.30% of Europe's tech exits in 2015 were VC-backed, which is actually a decrease from 2014's 36.3%. However, as capital continues to pour into Europe's tech companies we can still confidently expect to see this percentage begin to slowly increase over the next couple of years.
Germany and the UK remained home to the majority of European tech exits, with Israel and Sweden the most notable risers in terms of how 2015 panned out in comparison to 2014.
U.S companies made up significantly less of the buyers in 2015, as 1 in 3 acquisitions in 2014 went down to 1 in 4 in 2015, however the world's biggest tech companies continued to shop European as Apple and Microsoft turned out to be amongst the most active buyers of Europe's tech companies last year.
This is just a small taster from our comprehensive report into Europe's exit scene, so what else can you expect?
– the number of exits (M&A transactions + IPOs) tracked by tech.eu throughout 2015 – a breakdown of which transaction types was most prevalent – a look at the total and average size for all disclosed exit deals – insights into how many exits were disclosed – a breakdown of which vertical (e.g. 'E-commerce’) delivered the best returns – insights into how many of the exited companies were backed by venture capital – a breakdown of which exited companies focused on a B2C vs. B2B model – insights into where and when most M&A activity in Europe took place – an analysis of which investors were behind the most successful European tech exits – a breakdown of which companies were most active in buying European tech companies – insights into where buyers of European tech companies were located – a closer look at some of the largest markets in Europe (Israel, Sweden, France, UK, Germany and Spain) – future trends and expectations in European tech M&A and IPO activity
For a deep-dive into the above and our accompanying analysis, you can purchase the full report here for £400. Any questions? Please use our contact form.
Next up? An in-depth report on tech funding in 2015 - stay tuned.
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