2013 Key Highlights

  • Yahoo! Inc. was the industry’s most active acquirer with 27 transactions during 2013. The largest of these deals was the acquisition of Tumblr, Inc. for $1.10 billion.
  • There were 262 financially sponsored transactions with an aggregate value of $15.52 billion, representing 12 percent of the total volume and 23 percent of the total value, respectively.

2013 Key Trends

  • Total transaction volume in 2013 increased by eight percent over 2012, from 2,029 to 2,187.
  • Total transaction value in 2013 decreased by six percent over 2012, from $70.98 billion to $66.59 billion.
  • The median revenue multiple moved slightly from 2.3x in 2012 to 2.2x in 2013. The median EBITDA multiple improved from 10.0x in 2012 to 12.2x in 2013.
  • Both the SaaS & Cloud and E-Marketing & Search segments saw volume rise by 12 percent. These two segments were also tied for the largest increase in deal activity in 2013 over 2012.
  • Transaction volume in the consumer mobile application subsector increased by 31 percent, from 168 to 220 transactions. One of the highest value mobile-based deals in 2013 was Google’s acquisition of waze Mobile for $966 million.

M&A Market Overview

Berkery Noyes tracked 6,124 Online & Mobile transactions between 2011 and 2013, of which 1,559 disclosed financial terms, and calculated the aggregate value to be $157.17 billion. Based on known transaction values, we project values of 4,565 undisclosed transactions to be $59.46 billion, totaling $216.63 billion worth of transactions tracked over the past three years.

Disclosed median enterprise value multiples for all segments combined in this report during the last 36 months were 2.2x revenue and 11.3x EBITDA.

Based on volume, the most active market segment that Berkery Noyes tracked between 2011 and 2013 was SaaS & Cloud with 1,607 transactions. Based on value, the largest market segment was E-Commerce with $55.55 worth of transactions.