Toronto Partner and National Co-Leader of Fasken’s Emerging Technology & Venture Capital Group, Will Shaw, comments on the dominance of strategic acquirers in Canadian tech M&A transactions, in an article published in BetaKit.
Noting that 82% of Canadian tech exits analyzed in Fasken’s Exit InSights report involved a strategic buyer, he observes that such acquirers “often pay a true premium, because there’s a real integration and platform rationale that a strategic buyer might have relative to a private equity buyer that’s often more financial metric-oriented.ˮ
Will Shaw also outlined how strategic acquisitions tend to centre on long-term product integration and team continuity.
“We’ve had clients, for example, where strategics have brought them in and the founders become the AI experts in the company,” said Partner Will Shaw. “As the strategic is reinventing itself to some degree, the founders play a really important role in the management team of that strategic.”
The dominance of strategic acquirers in Canadian tech exits is one of the key trends emerging from Exit InSights, a first-of-its-kind report authored by a team of leading partners from Fasken’s Emerging Technology & Venture Capital Practice Group. The report analyzes more than 250 deal points from Canadian tech M&A transactions completed between 2019 and 2024.
Read the full report here.
