Reports: A Comprehensive Insight into our Sectors

Artificial intelligence has shaken off its experimental mantra and fully launched into the developmental phase of the innovation cycle. The growth of many industries is now dependent on the advancements of AI and their application. Industries are hungry for an artificial intelligence that can propel their next technology push, improve efficiency and productivity.

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.

2019 saw consolidation, funding and innovation at every stage of the global automotive value chain, from the production of vehicles and embedded technology to the enterprise systems that drive the automobile sales machine.

After a record 2018, partly as a result of new data protection regulations, deal volumes so far suggest that the Cybersecurity sector will not be losing any momentum in 2019. The number of attacks as well as their complexity is growing rapidly, prompting companies to cyber-arm themselves and fill in the gaps and loopholes in their security, thus driving the popularity of cybersecurity vendors.

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.

The ongoing rise of software innovation continues to deliver new companies, business models and jobs. The unwavering rise of cloud-based applications is a fundamental component of today’s enterprise software landscape. New players are fast-moving in on the space to push the boundaries of what used to be impossible.

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.

Hampleton's latest Healthtech M&A market report reveals that boom times are back, along with a rapidly increasing appetite to apply Artificial Intelligence (AI) to solve many of medicine's pressing problems.

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.