The number of acquisitions involving corporate venturers as exiting investors, which GCV Analytics has been tracking, had gone slightly down over the past few years: from a peak of 178 such transactions in 2016, sliding down to 152 and 135 acquisitions registered in the following two years – 2017 and 2018, respectively. However, there seems to have been a rebound to 160 acquisitions by the end of October 2019.
Things are different, however, in terms of the total dollar amounts involved in these transactions. We observed an all-time high at $51.4bn last year, up from $29.5bn in 2017. The total estimated dollar value of such exits stood at $23.1bn by the end of October this year and it appears it will be hard to match the record of the previous year.
While there are recorded trade sales by corporates in startups from virtually any sector, emerging businesses from the IT, media and life science sectors appear to have been historically the most likely to get acquired in comparison with other sectors.
