Big jump in tech investment value over the past two years

The overall value of technology industry venture financing deals recorded by GlobalData jumped from $119.13bn in January 2019 to $137.93bn in December 2020, representing a 15.03% increase year on year (YoY).

GlobalData’s tracking of completed deals recorded a total of 22,101 transactions across the globe over the two years, with 10,847 and 11,254 deals having been recorded in 2019 and 2020 respectively, representing a 3.75% YoY increase. 

North America suffered a 6.62% drop in deal activity over the period following the number of completed deals falling from 9,174 in 2019 to 8,566 deals in 2020. However, GlobalData’s tracking shows that deal activity over the same period grew in the Asia-Pacific, Europe, the Middle East and Africa, and in South and Central America by 24.5%, 13.9%, 11.7% and 3.9% respectively.

A snapshot of completed M&A activity in North America, as recorded by GlobalData, shows the total value of acquisitions dropping from $195.85bn in 2019 to $107.05bn in 2020. Interestingly, the number of acquisitions grew from 1,794 to 1,873 during the same period.

The value of mergers skyrocketed between 2019 and 2020, with GlobalData’s datasets showing that the total value of these deals grew from $34.19bn across 95 deals in 2019 to 96 mergers worth $45.19bn in total in 2020.

There were also a total of 547 asset transactions over the two years. While the number of deals jumped from 269 to 278 over the two years, the total value of these transactions dropped from $13.97bn in 2019 to only $9.6bn in 2020.

GlobalData’s tracking of technology industry deals by Themes, as seen above, reveals that the artificial intelligence sector still reigns supreme, despite seeing the number of completed deals decreasing from 7,359 in 2019 to 6,525 in 2020.

Completed deals in the cloud sector only endured a slight drop from 4,004 in 2019 to 3,968 in 2020. Digital media suffered a fall from 3,141 deals recorded in 2019 to 2,973 in 2020. Internet of things (IoT) deals slid down from 3,141 in 2019 to 2,817 in 2020. The number of big data deals jumped ever so slightly from 2,392 deals in 2019 to 2,411 deals in 2020. 

Looking at the total value of deals between 2019 and 2020, it seems as if the IoT sector enjoyed the biggest increase over the 12 month-period. The value of the deals in the sector increased from $134.71bn to $142.95bn between 2019 and 2020. 

Note: All numbers as of 12 March 2021. For more insight and data, visit GlobalData's Technology Intelligence Centre.