Mergermarket M&A Forum Australia 2023
The premier M&A forum in Australia
Four Seasons Hotel, Sydney and Online
16
Mar
Sector focus: Technology M&A: an evolving market
The Australian technology M&A market has seen major shifts in the past year. Compared to record high valuations and technology megadeals in the space a year ago, lower valuations for technology firms have meant that companies have had to increasingly seek funding in the private markets to stay afloat. Whilst this shift may provide the impetus to restart merger activity in the sector, and although Australia’s middle market technology companies and expanding startup scene remain attractive to investors, buyers will tread more cautiously. Our panel of technology experts will discuss the opportunity set in the sector and debate what the future holds.
- How has the sector changed in the past year, and how are dealmakers responding to the sector volatility and impacts on valuations?
- Which tech industries have seen the most activity in the past 6 months, such as fintech and e-commerce?
- What are corporate buyers looking for in this dealmaking environment, and how have their strategies changed compared to 2021/2?
- Digitalization - what are some recent examples of companies that have acquired new technologies?
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SpeakersSam Riley CEO ANSARADA
Mark Hall Head of Acquisitions and Integration WISETECH GLOBAL
Kara Frederick Managing Partner Tiger Financial Group
Brendan Mulheron Co-Head of Technology, Media & Telecoms UBS
Andrew Joyce Partner POTENTIA CAPITAL
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Sam Riley is the CEO and co-founder of Ansarada. Sam’s vision is to help millions of businesses raise and protect their potential throughout their lifecycle. Ansarada is doing this through leveraging all its experience from running +24,000 M&A deals across the globe into the AI-powered platform, which provides the visibility, insights, connections and automation that companies need to be ready for the most important outcomes in their lifecycle, including debt and equity capital raising, compliance, refinancing, M&A and more.
Today, Ansarada is a complete Operating System for governing critical information, so you can reduce risk, boost efficiencies, and drive decision making at every stage of a company's lifecycle. Their portfolio of SaaS solutions now includes Deals, Board, Tenders and Compliance, bringing together the AI-powered Virtual Data Rooms, project management workflow tool, highly secure board portal, and governance & compliance pathways into a single powerful platform.
Ansarada was established with just $30k in capital and now has 200 employees around the world and an annual revenue of~$38m. More than 400,000 professionals use Ansarada’s platform and data rooms for transactions such as capital raising, private placements, IPO’s, asset sales and more. Ansarada has frequently been listed on the Deloitte Technology Fast50 and BRW’s Best Places to Work in Australia Awards.
Sam is passionate about leadership, simplicity, challenging the status quo and serving those less fortunate. Sam has pledged 1 percent of Ansarada’s equity, time and product to the Adara Group, a unique organization working to improve the lives of women and children from Nepal and Uganda living in extreme poverty
Mark joined WiseTech Global in 2015 as an advisor on the IPO. Following the successful listing, Mark joined the group permanently as Deputy CFO, with a core focus on forecasting, reporting and process improvement. During Mark’s time at WiseTech, he has led the acquisition process and has been implementing and driving the integration process across acquired businesses. Prior to joining the WiseTech team, Mark spent almost 20 years with PwC in M&A focused roles on buy side, sell side due diligence and public market transactions across Europe and Australia. Mark is a Chartered Accountant and holds a Bachelor of Arts from the University of Leeds.
Kara Frederick
Managing Partner
Tiger Financial Group
Kara is the Founder and Managing Partner of Tiger Financial Group (TFG), a leading financial services firm empowering Australian growth companies into global markets. Kara is also Managing Partner in a private capital fund for cleantech.
TFG’s recent advisory and investment deal highlights include but are not limited to: US$1.2 billion NASDAQ listing for global EV charging leader Tritium, advisory services for HR tech ‘unicorn’ Culture Amp, and investment in fintech leader Indebted.
Kara has extensive international investment and capital markets experience. She previously led a $150 million fintech fund and spent a decade on Wall Street and Silicon Valley, including with Goldman Sachs Capital Partners.
Kara’s leadership roles also include being a Director of MGA Thermal (a leading Hunter-based long duration storage leader), a Member of the Governance Board of ATRaCE ($200M commitment to NSW-based cleantech start-ups) and as co-head of Princeton University’s Alumni Schools Committee, among others.
Kara spends her time in the Hunter and Sydney with her young family.
Brendan is Co-Head of Technology, Media & Telecoms for UBS Australasia, with a particular focus on the software/internet side.
He has approx. 15 years investment banking experience, the last decade of which he has covered the Technology and TMT sectors.
Most recently, Brendan has advised the likes of ELMO Software, Nitro Software, Siteminder, Domain Holdings, Hansen Technologies and Class Ltd .
Brendan has a Bachelor of Commerce from the University of Sydney and is a qualified Chartered Accountant.
Andrew Joyce, Partner
Andrew Joyce joined is a Partner at Potentia and has been with the firm since 2019. Andrew has over 16 years’ experience in M&A, Management Consulting and Technology.
Within the Potentia portfolio, Andrew is a director of Linkly and Commerce Vision.
Prior to joining Potentia, Andrew was the Co-Founder of two technology businesses, across both software and hardware.
Prior to this, Andrew was an Investment Manager at Archer Capital, an Australian mid-market Private Equity fund based in Sydney. Andrew commenced his career at Bain & Company, where he worked across clients in the telecommunication and banking sectors.
Andrew holds a Bachelor of Engineering with First Class Honours from the University of New South Wales, where he was a Malcolm Chaikin Scholarship recipient.