Global technology M&A reached $1.08 trillion in 2025, up 66 percent year over year, with AI the dominant theme across the largest transactions. Roughly 22 percent of North American technology deal value was AI-related. This briefing maps the capability race: who is buying, the new deal structures, and what they mean for founders.
AI deals increasingly do not look like traditional M&A. License-and-talent structures, acquihires at platform scale, and retention lockups are rewriting how capability changes hands and how it is priced. The briefing draws on Windsor Drake’s proprietary transaction index, its quarterly valuation research, and the transaction experience of its advisory practice in Toronto and New York.
It is written for the people who have to act on it: founders weighing an exit, boards setting expectations, and shareholders deciding how the capability race reprices what they have built.
$1.08 trillion. Global technology M&A value in 2025, up 66 percent year over year, with AI the dominant theme.
~22 percent. Share of North American technology deal value attributable to AI-related transactions in 2025.
$40 billion and more. Capital deployed through license-and-talent structures by the largest technology companies over the past two years.
$14.3 billion. Meta’s investment in Scale AI, paired with the hire of its chief executive, the largest talent-driven structure to date.
2x to 4x. Revenue multiple premium that AI-native platforms command over conventional software peers in Windsor Drake coverage.
12 to 24. Months of retention lockups now standard for key technical staff in talent-driven AI transactions.
Each finding is developed in full in the briefing, with the supporting transaction data and the implications for founders and boards stated plainly.
01 · The state of the market. Deal value, deal count, and where capital is concentrating.
02 · What is driving the cycle. The buyers, capital, and structural forces behind current activity.
03 · What buyers pay for. Where the market clears by quality tier, and the metrics that move a company between tiers.
04 · The founder playbook. Timing, preparation, and process design for an exit into this market.
By email. Once you submit a request, the full briefing is sent to the address you provide, from the desk of Jeff Barrington at Windsor Drake.
Yes. Every request is treated with the same confidentiality as a client inquiry. Nothing is shared, and your details are never sold or circulated.
No. The briefing is research, not a pitch. There is no obligation and no follow-on sequence beyond the research itself.
The Windsor Drake research team, drawing on the firm’s proprietary transaction index, its quarterly valuation research, and the transaction experience of its advisory practice in Toronto and New York.
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