Corum has a unique vantage point on tech M&A – across the thousands of interactions with technology companies through our educational conferences, the extensive research we do for our clients and monthly reports, and our thousands of conversations with buyers for our clients, we have a broader view of what’s happening in tech M&A than anyone in the industry. It’s an advantage that we leverage for our clients, but we also put to work more generally each year when we develop our annual list of the Top 10 Disruptive Trends that we see driving tech M&A.
We take all those discussions and research and synthesize it into the leading list of its kind every year, so if you’re a tech company CEO considering M&A, I encourage you to pay close attention. Likewise, if you’re a buyer seeking to make acquisitions, these are the key trends shaping your environment.
Tech M&A is uniquely driven by disruption, because disruption drives strategic imperative for buyers—properly positioning your company in relation to this disruption is critical to getting your company’s true value. Well-positioned companies get sold. So, given all that, here’s our Top Ten Disruptive Trends for 2025.
Our “Foundational” trends are those changing things at a core level of society, technology, the economy, etc.: GenAI Enablement, People Centric Productivity, Actionable Analytics, Value Chain Intelligence and Embedded Cashflow. Then there are the “functional” trends, describing how disruption plays out in specific markets and technologies: Focused Managed Services, Healthtech Continuum, Regtech Systems, Blue Collar Software and the Digitized Environment.
GenAI Enablement remains our top trend, even as you’re seeing an increase in cynicism globally. That’s the typical hype cycle pattern and will ultimately be a good thing for many companies as the hype washes out of the system and leaves the companies creating customer value. Right now, you’re seeing the market sort out between three categories: companies with good tech but implemented in a high-touch, customized manner risk getting stuck doing proofs-of-concept until the market passes them by. Then, there are a lot of firms that have pasted a thin layer of GenAI on top of existing solutions. If you’ve found a killer use case, this can be effective, but it usually does not drive buyer interest on its own. We see the most interest in robust tools, either purpose-built for GenAI or built with enough foresight that GenAI can slot in as a key enabling factor of a robust toolset.
That’s one-half of the enablement concept. Still, the other half—arguably more active now—is in those technologies and capabilities enabling GenAI itself at every layer of tech infrastructure, including unique data sources, LLM management, quality assurance, compliance, orchestration, training, etc. GenAI is also extraordinarily compute-intensive—Corum Client X-ISS was a high-performance computing and AI specialist acquired by N2 Group to help address this challenge. Electrical power needs are also changing as data centers demand is soaring to support GenAI, and tools addressing this are also in demand.
People Centric Productivity remains a key trend even as the employment market continues to shift. While we’re broadly out of the depths of the worker shortage, the entire landscape of human resources is still wildly different than it was a few years ago. For many industries, that shortage is still a challenging reality. That translates to a steadily strong M&A market in HR tech and other tools that enable companies to attract, hire, retain and engage employees. Corum sold Hireclick, makers of an AI-enabled applicant tracking system, to HCM leader Asure Software to address exactly these challenges.
The other side of this trend is the software that helps employees do more with less, improving their productivity, automating drudgery and letting them focus on the tasks that truly require a human being. Again, vertical market solutions are in high demand here—for example, Corum has done two deals in the nonprofit space with productivity-enhancing platforms, with Donorfy acquired by the Access Group in the UK and Better Impact acquired by the Brydon Group in the US.
Actionable Analytics is a broad term for technology that turns data into prescriptive insights that enable faster, better decision-making. This can look like a wide variety of software—it can be visualization tools and dashboards with classic charts and graphs. Still, more often, we’re talking about features that are or can be embedded in platforms that can access the right data, run the numbers and point to optimal actions. This provides a clear M&A thesis for companies with good technology that can enable a broader platform—Corum client Novogrid provides analytics that helps energy grid stakeholders identify actionable connection options ahead of investment and was acquired by SCADA International to strengthen its broad grid modeling and energy project design capabilities. You’ll see opportunities like these across industries. Targeted decision support solutions like pricing, benchmarking and related tools are also all relevant here—as are the supporting data management technologies that support the entire data infrastructure that makes these advanced analytics possible
Embedded Cashflow is a continuation of trends we’ve seen in the past, along with some important new developments and driven by embedded finance on one hand—financial services embedded into software—and embedded fintech on the other—fintech and software embedded in more traditional financial services companies. In both cases, it creates significant demand for software companies that enable the movement of money, enabling higher returns by getting as close to that cash flow as possible.
The biggest way we see this play out in M&A remains the often-untapped value of credit card processing. These days, a wide range of buyers seek software platforms that directly facilitate transactions—ERPs, POS and other commerce-enabling solutions that usually have one or more third-party processors to make that happen. When the acquirer has its own payment processing capability, they can create a significant new revenue stream in their acquired companies. But beyond payments, we’re seeing these sorts of opportunities expand to lending, insurance, payroll and ways that money moves and cash flows. Whether the acquirer is a software company with its own embedded financial services capabilities or a financial services firm seeking tech, this trend, more than most, is about the combination between buyer and seller, so a key reason to get a broad view of the market when embarking on an M&A process.
The Value Chain Intelligence trend means technology enables the movement of data across value chains of all kinds. In any complex process, you always lose data when moving from one step to another—between departments, between organizations, between trading partners and sometimes just between individuals. Sometimes it’s about context or metadata, and sometimes it’s the data itself. Software that keeps that data intact from step to step, enabling deeper insights and a broader view of the relevant environment, is in high demand.
In the software world, you see this in DevOps tools that more tightly link the development of solutions and the operational departments that use them—Corum client Flexagon provides DevOps solutions for complex enterprise environments like Oracle, SAP and Salesforce, and was acquired by Main Capital Partners. A very different example in a different part of IT infrastructure is Corum client Network Capacity Solutions, acquired by Connectbase—its comprehensive, end-to-end inventory management capabilities bring together the disaggregated data about circuits and facilities necessary to deliver end to end connectivity. That step from the physical world to the digital world is one where a lot of data can be lost and a lot of value can be created—we’ll come back to that concept later.
Focused Managed Services continue to be the lens through which buyers view services companies. That includes IT services—systems integrators, consulting, MSPs, software developers and more—but also tech-enabled services more broadly. Buyers want both predictable, preferably truly recurring revenue—that’s the “managed” part—well as the deep, specific domain knowledge, the focus, that makes those customer relationships possible. This can be a focus by sector or customer type, like our sale Clear Cloud, a cloud services company serving the US intelligence community, acquired by defense contractor VTG. It can also be about a particular technology type or problem set, like X-ISS, mentioned earlier, the experts in AI and high-performance computing. There are also technology ecosystems where deep expertise and customer relationships are key across cloud platforms like AWS, Azure or enterprise platforms like Salesforce, Oracle, ServiceNow, etc. Generally, it is easier to sell a hammer than a tool chest, so that kind of focus really can be key to getting a deal done.
The Healthtech Continuum trend likewise is how buyers broadly approach companies selling into the healthcare vertical, and has been for quite a while. With significant consolidation having swept across the world of traditional inpatient health systems and software, the need for a unified view of patients and their data across the continuum of care, before and after they enter these facilities, remains a key driver of M&A. Healthcare payers have the same needs around data—Corum client HCIM’s data automation and RPA tools for claims management is a great example of this, acquired by Metamora Partners. Meanwhile providers outside of the traditional health care systems of all kinds need comparable capabilities, and niche EHR, patient engagement, practice management and related tools are in demand. This is increasingly true in those areas that address the root cause of health care demand—mental health and addiction treatment on the one hand and elder care and home health on the other.
Regtech Systems remains an active trend, on both sides of the rules—regulated industries and the regulators themselves. Technology that more easily enables compliance to the increasingly complex web of international regulations– across GRC, EHS, ESG and other acronyms – is in demand. And keep in mind, even deregulation adds additional complexity that needs technology to deal with. Beyond that, the layers of regulation go well past just those from the US government—international, local, industry-imposed, the list goes on. This is one of the reasons it is fertile ground for M&A, as niche solutions addressing particular regulations and localities can either be acquired to be part of a broader platform or by financial acquirers who see the opportunity represented by a defensible niche and customers required to stay current. The same is true on the other side of regulation, and that’s one of the reasons local government software has been in such high demand recently—hence the majority investment from Quality Standard into Corum Client Intertribal Software, which provides software to sovereign tribal governments across the US.
Frontline workers of all kinds are the beneficiaries of everything we’ve discussed previously, resulting in our Blue Collar Software trend. The way that digital transformation is changing the roles of blue collar workers is one of the key drivers of tech M&A today, as data and insight gets pushed out more broadly to workers, and back into the system from workers in the field, on the shop floor or wherever else they may be found. This is true in the larger blue collar industries like agriculture, energy, construction and manufacturing, where Corum has done several deals recently, but even within those narrow vertical focuses, buyers remain highly engaged—Corum manufacturing software Client QSTRAT, sold to Embrace Software, for example, has the automotive and fastener industries as its primary focus.
Another is Corum Client WRM Software, acquired by Urbint, facilitating the work of linemen and other frontline workers during storm response for energy and critical infrastructure—their process management solution, addressing significant safety, reliability and logistical challenges is a great example of the sort of technology driving significant buyer interest.
Finally, the Digitized Environment. Much of what we just discussed about workers is happening in the digital environment, with the physical world modeled, analyzed and predicted digitally. It is also monitored by a growing and diversifying number of sensors with increasing digital control of the physical environment coming along. You can broadly look at this happening at three levels – at the infrastructure level, particularly the energy infrastructure, we're seeing massive disruption deriving from the rapidly scaling AI-driven data center power demand, electrification and the overall greening of power sources globally. This drives pure software deals like Novogrid's analytics capabilities discussed earlier. Watch for energy management, battery technology and other solutions addressing these critical needs. One level down from that, you've got the building-level digitization, driven by technology like Digital Twins and Building Information Modeling – technology in that space drove the investment in Corum Client Glider Technology by Private Equity firm Cow Corner.
Finally, the area where we’ve seen maybe the most activity is at the asset level—lots happening again in Manufacturing with technology like Real Time Location Tracking Systems – Corum client Sewio, acquired by HID—and equipment effectiveness monitoring—Corum client OEESystems, acquired by Maintmaster. Outside of manufacturing, we already talked about Network Capacity Solutions doing asset management in the connectivity space, and parking management is another area of interest, as seen with Everfield’s acquisition of Corum Client ParkHere. As you can see, there’s significant interest in this trend from both financial and strategic buyers.
Those are the disruptive trends for 2025—I hope they are helpful to you as you consider your strategy and options in today’s very active tech M&A environment.