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So far, this has been a pretty good year for startup acquisitions.

Acquirers made just over $100 billion worth of disclosed-price startup purchases 1 in the first half of 2025, per ¸½½üÉÏÃÅ . That’s a whopping 155% increase from the same period last year, showing buyers are increasingly willing to write big checks for sought-after companies.

Notably, roughly a third of this year’s total comes from a single deal: ’s planned purchase of cybersecurity unicorn for a record-setting $32 billion. But there were other startups selling in multibillion-dollar acquisitions as well, including device designer and automation software provider .

Dealmaking gets more frenetic

Deal count, meanwhile, has held steadier, with the number of announced acquisitions hovering in the mid-400s for the past three quarters. The number of M&A deals tends to be less influenced by market conditions, since buyers are inclined to go bargain hunting during down cycles and compete aggressively for hot companies during bullish ones.

Lately, the ambience leans more frenetic, particularly as pertains to AI. This was evidenced this past week, with the drama around AI coding provider . The startup was about to sell to for $3 billion until made a deal to hire its CEO and co-founder, , and pay $2.4 billion for compensation and licensing.Then on Monday, AI startup announced it would acquire Windsurf.

AI was also the draw for the largest Q2 deal, OpenAI’s $6.5 billion acquisition of Io, a design startup co-founded by and focused on AI-powered devices.

Even with all the excitement around AI, however, the majority of M&A spending this year hasn’t gone to the space. Per ¸½½üÉÏÃÅ , only around $15 million of disclosed-price acquisitions were for AI startups in the first half of this year. (However, that excludes Wiz, which isn’t classified as an artificial intelligence company but does list AI security as one of its focus areas.)

Biggest H1 M&A deals

So where is M&A spending concentrating?

To get a sense, we used ¸½½üÉÏÃÅ to aggregate a list of 13 of the largest acquisitions in the first half of this year.

As shown above, besides AI, enterprise software fared well. Top deals in the space include Moveworks’ $2.85 billion acquisition by , as well as accounts payable platform ’s $2.5 billion sale to .

In the healthcare space, electronic health record software provider delivered one of the biggest outcomes, selling a majority stake to private equity firm at a reported $5.3 billion valuation.

Smaller and stealthier deals add up

The vast majority of startup acquisitions don’t have a disclosed price. But they can add up.

Oftentimes, these deals involve large-cap acquirers and well-funded startups. Examples from 2025 include ’s acquisition of crypto wallet startup , ’s purchase of school scheduling app , and ’s acquisition of cloud security startup ,

It helps acquirers that, four years after the venture funding peak in 2021, there’s still a large pipeline of funded companies taking a serious look at exit options. If current trends continue, we should see a growing number of them accomplishing that goal through M&A.

Related ¸½½üÉÏÃÅ queries:

Related reading:

• With Google’s $32B Bid For Wiz, Big Exits Are Finally Picking Up
• AI Talent Wars Heat Up As Cognition Scoops Up Windsurf After OpenAI Deal Falls Apart
• Eye On AI: OpenAI’s Potential Windsurf Deal Could Be The Start Of A New M&A Trend

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