Skift Take
Mergers and acquisitions in travel tech are heating up, and experts say it won't stop any time soon.
The travel tech industry is ripe for consolidation.
That is what industry experts have been saying all year, and it seems they’re right.
There have been at least 15 acquisitions involving travel tech companies over the last two and a half months alone.
Among them: Mews, a cloud hospitality provider, made its ninth acquisition, SITA bought an airport check-in software company, and Amadeus acquired a biometrics company for $348 million.
Investment bank AGC Partners is among those that believe merger and acquisition activity is on the rise, with more activity expected into next year.
“The real action is yet to come,” AGC stated.
The company published an analysis on the topic in April that said the pieces are in place for more deals. Those pieces include an improving funding environment and the fact that tech private equity firms have about $300 billion to deploy, AGC said.
In the 15 deals outlined below, nearly none of the sale prices were disclosed. That often — but not always — means it was a small deal, especially in the case of a startup buying another company.
But that’s not a surprise, as venture capitalists post-pandemic are favoring companies with strong business models. Meanwhile, startups that raised too much money during the pandemic are bending under the high exceptions from investors, and many with weak business models are closing. (That was the case for Cabana, which closed because it could not find an investor or a buyer.)
And that’s where well-funded companies can swoop in to make acqui-hires or expand tech stacks for cheap.
AGC named several companies it believes are well-positioned to make more acquisitions, a couple of which are mentioned below: IBS Software, Guesty, Hostaway, Mews, Travelport, Triples