Technology
Visualizing the Biggest Tech Mergers and Acquisitions of 2020
The Biggest Tech Mergers and Acquisitions of 2020
For most businesses around the world, 2020 was a year of difficulties, lost business, and economic hardship. For Big Tech, it was a boon.
After COVID-19 hit hard in March, tech companies started to see their customer bases and revenues grow at an increased rate as people were stuck at home and utilizing their services.
Since down markets are the perfect time to consolidate, 2020 also saw big tech companies take the opportunity to grow their business with major mergers and acquisitions (M&A). After a quieter year in 2019 that saw tech investment activity dip, it was a resurgence to expected form.
In this graphic, we visualize the year’s biggest tech deals above $1 billion using data from Computerworld, which tracked the year’s biggest acquisitions.
Deal Activity from the Get-Go
Though 2020 was all about COVID-19 and its impact on the market, the tech sector had major deal flow even before the pandemic began.
By the end of February, six of the 19 biggest tech mergers and acquisitions of the year had already occurred—and the month of February alone saw the most major deals of any month with four.
The first deals of the year were also some of the biggest. Morgan Stanley’s purchase of online brokerage E*TRADE for $13 billion and Koch Industries’ $11 billion completed takeover of software company Infor were the 4th and 5th biggest tech acquisitions of 2020.
Other big moves included purchases from tech and payments firms Salesforce, Visa, and Intuit, as well as private equity firm Insight Partners.
The Biggest 2020 Deals Were Saved for Last
After a quiet March, only a few large deals occurred from April to the summer.
Nvidia’s $6.9 billion purchase of network chip producer Mellanox Technologies in May was more than a year in the making, and Uber’s $2.65 billion acquisition of food delivery rival Postmates in July significantly consolidated the U.S. food delivery scene.
As it turned out, the biggest deals of 2020 were back-loaded for the end of the year. Just under half of 2020’s billion-dollar tech M&As happened from September‒December, including the year’s three largest tech acquisitions:
Date | Purchaser | Acquired Company | Amount (Billions) |
---|---|---|---|
2020-09-13 | Nvidia | Arm | $40.0 |
2020-10-27 | AMD | Xilinx | $35.0 |
2020-12-01 | Salesforce | Slack | $27.7 |
2020-02-21 | Morgan Stanley | ETrade | $13.0 |
2020-02-04 | Koch Industries | Infor | $11.0 |
2020-10-29 | Marvell Techonology | Inphi | $10.0 |
2020-02-28 | Intuit | Credit Karma | $7.1 |
2020-05-04 | Nvidia | Mellanox | $6.9 |
2020-01-13 | Visa | Plaid | $5.3 |
2020-01-09 | Insight Partners | Veeeam | $5.0 |
2020-12-14 | Vista Equity Partners | Pluralsight | $3.5 |
2020-10-12 | Twilio | Segment | $3.2 |
2020-07-06 | Uber | Postmates | $2.7 |
2020-11-10 | Adobe | Workfront | $1.5 |
2020-02-25 | Salesforce | Vlocity | $1.3 |
2020-04-07 | SoFI | Galileo | $1.2 |
2020-06-26 | Amazon | Zoox | $1.2 |
2020-05-04 | Intel | Moovit | $1.0 |
2020-11-30 | Kustomer | $1.0 |
Of the 19 deals over $1 billion tracked above, Salesforce and Nvidia were the only companies to make multiple major acquisitions. And although tech saw gains across the sector, most of the major M&A activity was centered around semiconductors.
As 2020 winds down, the market focus on tech is expected to last into 2021. However, the markets and the world at large continue to deal with COVID-19.
The rollout of vaccines has put the world on a timeline to reach a post-COVID era. How will the tech landscape be affected?
Brands
How Tech Logos Have Evolved Over Time
From complete overhauls to more subtle tweaks, these tech logos have had quite a journey. Featuring: Google, Apple, and more.
How Tech Logos Have Evolved Over Time
This was originally posted on our Voronoi app. Download the app for free on iOS or Android and discover incredible data-driven charts from a variety of trusted sources.
One would be hard-pressed to find a company that has never changed its logo. Granted, some brands—like Rolex, IBM, and Coca-Cola—tend to just have more minimalistic updates. But other companies undergo an entire identity change, thus necessitating a full overhaul.
In this graphic, we visualized the evolution of prominent tech companies’ logos over time. All of these brands ranked highly in a Q1 2024 YouGov study of America’s most famous tech brands. The logo changes are sourced from 1000logos.net.
How Many Times Has Google Changed Its Logo?
Google and Facebook share a 98% fame rating according to YouGov. But while Facebook’s rise was captured in The Social Network (2010), Google’s history tends to be a little less lionized in popular culture.
For example, Google was initially called “Backrub” because it analyzed “back links” to understand how important a website was. Since its founding, Google has undergone eight logo changes, finally settling on its current one in 2015.
Company | Number of Logo Changes |
---|---|
8 | |
HP | 8 |
Amazon | 6 |
Microsoft | 6 |
Samsung | 6 |
Apple | 5* |
Note: *Includes color changes. Source: 1000Logos.net
Another fun origin story is Microsoft, which started off as Traf-O-Data, a traffic counter reading company that generated reports for traffic engineers. By 1975, the company was renamed. But it wasn’t until 2012 that Microsoft put the iconic Windows logo—still the most popular desktop operating system—alongside its name.
And then there’s Samsung, which started as a grocery trading store in 1938. Its pivot to electronics started in the 1970s with black and white television sets. For 55 years, the company kept some form of stars from its first logo, until 1993, when the iconic encircled blue Samsung logo debuted.
Finally, Apple’s first logo in 1976 featured Isaac Newton reading under a tree—moments before an apple fell on his head. Two years later, the iconic bitten apple logo would be designed at Steve Jobs’ behest, and it would take another two decades for it to go monochrome.
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