For those waiting for a big wave of venture-backed M&A exits, 2016 wasn’t the year and it is unclear 2017 will be either.
It was a very strong year for global tech M&A, with deals like SoftBank’s $32 billion purchase of ARM and Microsoft’s $26 billion deal for LinkedIn, which closed this week. When measured by dollar volume, 2016 was the second most active year for global tech M&A since 2000, according to Goldman Sachs, with $407 billion in deals through Nov. 25.
But private companies were largely left out of the party.
