Reports: A Comprehensive Insight into our Sectors

Artificial intelligence continues to sweep through all industries horizontally, changing software and technological processes as we know them. AI is the key source of transformation and disruption used by many corporations to stay afloat and remain competitive –by virtue of assistance, augmentation and automation it can contribute to various processes.

Since the last edition of Hampleton’s AR/VR report, the industry has kept making significant strides, with increasing amounts of funding flowing to later-stage companies in particular to accelerate the development of AR/VR technology in a wide variety of applications, ranging from retail to industrial manufacturing and from healthcare to energy and power.

This year, the Autotech sector has been impacted by Covid-19 lockdown measures, economic recession and a collapse in car sales in Europe and the USA. OEMs and suppliers were distracted from M&A while putting out supply chain fires and dealing with reduced demand for new vehicles.

Enterprises have been forced to rapidly digitise their products, processes and services. Lockdown measures around the world have accelerated the move to digital. Working from home has required better IT capabilities, whether in-house or outsourced. This has generated a need for reinforced cybersecurity: while the world is focused on the health and economic threats posed by Covid, cyber criminals are undoubtedly capitalising on this crisis. 

As digital marketing and e-commerce have merged and their functions grown intrinsically connected, Digital Commerce is positioned for new growth paths and attractive M&A scenarios alike.

Covid-19 is re-shaping the Enterprise Software M&A market. Both private equity and strategic buyers are focusing their sights on companies helping to improve communications, streamline processes or facilitate remote working capabilities; businesses that help fuel the e-commerce boom, like supply chain logistics software critical for improving last-mile fulfilment; and, of course, healthcare software.

The fintech industry continues to grow and break records. Changes are being accelerated by the shift away from cash, the boom in electronic payment transactions, and the application of innovations in artificial intelligence and machine learning.

2018 witnessed the highest level of venture capital investment on record, both in volume and value terms. This included an unprecedented increase in the amount of supergiant rounds and new unicorn births in addition to growth in all median sizes of funding rounds. The total value of all unicorns has also inched above $1 trillion according to CBInsights.

There is growing appetite to apply Artificial Intelligence (AI) and digital solutions to solve many of medicine's pressing problems. This has been exacerbated by the coronavirus pandemic in 2020.

The HR Technology market has evolved considerably in the last twelve months, with changes across technologies used for core HR, payroll & benefits and recruitment purposes. Enteprise software vendors are addressing disruption in the field through innovation or acquisition, and financial buyers are deploying extra capital to benefit from high-growth opportunities, thus creating an increasingly competitive space. 

Over the past three years, solution providers in the industry have seen emerging technologies penetrate the insurance mainstream. These new technologies offer solutions to underserved markets, enhance business models, or create new markets altogether.

Enterprises are digitising more products, processes and services than ever before. At the same time, they are migrating them to the cloud for efficiency, scalability and corporate agility. These trends are driving growth across all segments of the IT Services sector, keeping firms with relevant expertise in hot demand.

High levels of investor confidence, a constant stream of innovation, reflectively cheap capital, rapidly developing supporting technologies and a strong push to create earnings growth through acquisitions are seemingly the right conditions for the M&A market to boom. However, overall trends have shown a correction from 2015's peak volumes and total deal values to a low in 2017 and finally a slight rebound in 2018.