The ability to continuously produce innovation has been one of Silicon Valley’s main key drivers. VCs invest in startups, and startups use the funds to acquire other startups, allowing them to grow and innovate at a faster pace.
Big Tech companies buy startups too — to onboard talent and innovation. Eventually, startups exit and return capital to VCs, who then invest in a new wave of startups. This cycle accelerates the wheel of innovation, expanding its scope with each iteration.
Data from the latest Mind the Bridge and Crunchbase report The End of the Startup M&A Era? Tech Startup M&A 2024 Report analyzing startup acquisitions by Fortune Global 500 companies since the beginning of the millennium confirms these findings.
- Six of the 10 largest startup acquirers in the world are Silicon Valley companies (seven if we include Microsoft, which is not too far away).
- North American companies acquire startups at 4x the rate of European companies, and the gap with Southeast Asian companies is even wider, with North American firms acquiring 7x to 10x more.
This has been the story of Silicon Valley—until now.
But there’s a catch.
A market shift
Since 2021, global startup M&A activity has seen a significant downturn.
While the “VC pullback” certainly plays a role, this may signal a deeper, more permanent shift in the market rather than a temporary slowdown. Governments around the world are tightening their grip on M&A activity, especially within the tech sector, driven by escalating geopolitical tensions and the resurgence of protectionist policies.
Large acquisitions (as shown by the $20 billion Adobe–Figma deal blockade) are now facing heightened scrutiny.
On one hand, political pressure is mounting against market concentration and monopolies.
On the other hand, there’s an increasing need to safeguard technologies deemed critical to national security. The tech and healthcare sectors, which have traditionally been active in M&A, now face tighter regulatory scrutiny. As a direct consequence of rising geopolitical tensions, the focus is also extending to dual use technologies and defense tech, with heightened government oversight on industrial defense assets and policies. This trend was underscored in the recently published report The Future of European Competitiveness by Mario Draghi.
If these regulatory trends persist, they could reshape the venture capital landscape as we know it. That means significatively impacting Silicon Valley’s innovation engine and, in turn, disrupting the entire startup ecosystem.
After all, as the Mind the Bridge saying goes: “no exit, no party.”
Alberto Onetti is chairman of Mind the Bridge.
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