M&A Roars Back To Life In The Smart Workplace Technology Market With A Wave Of Strategic Acquisitions

M&A Roars Back To Life In The Smart Workplace Technology Market With A Wave Of Strategic Acquisitions

While acquisition activity across the smart workplace market has been tepid throughout lockdown, a new surge of deals closed between February and June of this year highlights that the pace of M&A is now back to full throttle. During this time, our deal tracker identified that nine strategic deals closed across the workplace software market. So, what are the investment trends and implications for firms in the market?

The deals demonstrate that there is a new growth phase developing in the IWMS segment. Real estate services firm MRI Software acquired the Manhattan solutions suite from Trimble, which will provide it with a strong IWMS platform that can centralize workplace data, complementing MRI’s existing lease-focused tools such as AMTdirect and Leverton. Asset operations solutions firm Ørn Software acquired Rapal to growth its annual recurring revenue (ARR) by adding the latter’s 250 customers to its books. Private equity firm Thoma Bravo acquired iOFFICE from Waud Capital, to capitalize on the suppliers’ strong capabilities for supporting hybrid working with digital workplace management tools.

In the IoT segment, established providers are acquiring start-ups to quickly bolster their capabilities. Planon acquired IoT platform provider Axonize, which offers operational data capture from hardware solutions that can now be feed into analytics dashboards provided by Planon. And Verizon acquired indoor positioning solutions firm Senion, to expand its location-based technology services for the smart workplace.

Finally, smart workplace vendors are also keen to catch the ongoing wave of interest in space and visitor management tools that enable hybrid workplaces. The most notable deals include IWMS firm FM:Systems acquiring visitor and space management solutions firm WizzPass and real estate services firm Yardi acquiring visitor management solutions firm We Are Forge. Space analytics vendor Density also acquired space reservation specialist Nashi and location-services firm Inpixon acquired workplace experience solutions firm CX App.

This hive of activity also reflects that the space and workplace software market will continue to be the fastest growing segment of the smart building software market. According to the latest Verdantix market size and forecast, this segment will enjoy a compound annual growth rate (CAGR) of 16% between now and 2026. This will be supported by the increasingly fast as well as global roll out of COVID-19 vaccines. Firms will need digital solutions to assist with both the return to work and long-term workplace strategy changes. Software suppliers are therefore aligning product development with as many customer-needs as possible, so they can entice them to stick with one supplier rather than leveraging multiple specialist solutions. This way they can capture as much of the demand as possible, rather than having to rely on less secure partnerships to do so.

To understand more about this dynamic software market, read our Market Size And Forecast: Space And Workplace Management Software 2020-2026 (Global), which for the first time, breaks down market spend by supplier heritage, modular functionality and building asset type.