Industries / sectors

Experts in industrial tech markets

The convergence of digital transformation and energy transition is driving the industrial technology sector, causing disruption in the manufacturing industry.

We possess comprehensive expertise in digital, manufacturing, and energy technologies, enabling us to assist players in the industrial tech ecosystem in overcoming challenges and capitalizing on opportunities presented by the major trends of digital transformation and energy transition.

We have extensive insights into this vast and fragmented industry, as well as a broad network of strategic and financial investors.

Digital
technology

The DACH region is home to a diverse and fragmented landscape of small and medium software and IT companies that are driving digital transformation across industries.

Although competitive dynamics and maturity levels may vary between IT segments, these companies all face similar forces that impact their strategies:

  • Need to invest in technology drivers such as cloud transformation, SaaS business models, and AI integration.
  • Strong forces of market consolidation.
  • A growing buyer universe, including large tech companies, industrial conglomerates, industrial machinery companies, and financial investors.

We help software and IT companies to develop viable strategic options for their future

Be it a defendable niche position or finding an investor or strategic buyer.

Our clients typically come from the following segments:

Insights

Highly diverse and fragmented landscape with significant market potential and growth expectations. Industrial digitization, reallocation of supply chains, and increasing supply chain risks are driving market potential. Technology trends such as cloud, SaaS-models, low code, and AI integration will force vendors to further invest in technology.

Implications

The market is consolidating as large industrial players, industrial software vendors, IT consultants, and hyperscalers acquire smaller players. Larger software vendors in the MES segment, for example, are expanding their market share through buy-and-build activities.

Insights

Compared to other software and IT-related segments, the enterprise software market is more mature. However, cloud transformation, the development of vertical solutions, and integration with other software segments create new dynamics. The ongoing need to digitize processes, especially for mid-size companies, will further drive market development.

Implications

As a result of increasing market consolidation activities, further M&A activities in market segments such as ERP, DMS/ ECM, or Business Intelligence and Analytics are expected.

Insights

These market segments are highly fragmented, with a large and growing number of startups and scale-ups with different business models. IIoT and AI are essential technologies in the digital transformation of the industrial sector. Key trends include increasing verticalization of new solutions, low code platforms and app development, as well as AI/ML integration (AIIOT).

Implications

We’ve already seen the first signs of consolidation, especially in the IIoT platform segment. The broad range of buyers includes industrial companies, industrial machinery companies, global IT players, and financial investors.

Insights

The landscape of tech-enabled services is highly fragmented, covering a broad range of subsegments, including IT consulting, system integration, MSPs, IoT integrators, and individual software developers. The lifecycle stages differ significantly between segments. System integrators and IT services companies play a crucial role in digitizing industries. Companies in this sector face a shortage of critical skills which limits growth opportunities, especially for smaller players.

Implications

A broad range of active acquirers, ranging from global IT consultants to industrial conglomerates, IT system integrators, private equity firms (buy-and-build), and manufacturing companies, are driving market consolidation. Since the IT resource market will remain tight, we expect further waves of acquisitions from out-of-industry players.

Manu­facturing
technology

Manufacturing technology covers a broad range of mature and emerging technologies that drive efficiency and automation in production processes.

Typically, sectors have originally hardware-driven business models in common and are confronted with increasing risk of disruption and digital transformation, while at the same time facing opportunities to develop new business as a part of Industry 4.0.

We help manufacturing companies navigate their transformation with our integrated strategy and transaction experience

In manufacturing technology, we focus on the following industries:

Insights

The industrial machinery industry is a key player in the German economy and the role model for Germany’s export business model. Nevertheless, in addition to geopolitical and economic drivers, digitization and energy transition will fundamentally transform the industrial machinery sector and force established players to rethink their business models to avoid being relegated to a pure hardware supplier.

To capture Industry 4.0 opportunities, established players will need to build up digital capabilities and develop digital business models to gradually transform their traditional core business.

Implications

Looking at the skill shortages in the IT sector and the speed of innovation in digital technologies, we expect M&A to be a key driver to implement digital transformation within industrial machinery companies. At the same time competition for attractive targets is rising. Hyperscaler, industry software companies, industrial conglomerates, and large IT system integrators have all recently shown increasing interest in software and IT services companies. Manufacturing players need strategies to successfully transform their business model to ensure sustainable growth over the next decade.

Insights

The highly mature industrial robotics industry is facing increasing change and complexity driven by new technologies and new market entries. New growth opportunities have arisen from emerging technologies such as cobots and autonomous mobile robots. These trends are facilitating the targeting of new industry applications such as healthcare, food and logistics, as well as a generally broader penetration of the small-medium enterprise business.

Digital transformation, driven by startups in areas such as no-code programming, machine learning or AI based operating systems is hitting traditional robotics manufacturers as well.

Implications

To avoid commoditization, established robotics manufacturers will need to rethink their business models and develop the required software capabilities to defend their market position. New startup challengers on the other side need to think about business ecosystems and partnerships with established market players, or consider the search for a strategic investor to fund scaling. We expect to see an increasing level of M&A activities within the industry, including new players entering the market via strategic acquisitions.

Insights

Sectors like machine vision, measuring and testing technology are highly fragmented, mid-size driven market segments, experiencing growth momentum thanks to Industry 4.0 concepts and increasing inline application of technologies within production lines. This shift in demand requires technological innovation in the areas of cloud and edge technologies, AI, and IoT integration. Technology innovations also enable companies to tap into new growth verticals such as healthcare, food, and chems/pharms.

Implications

High industry fragmentation and the fact that numerous companies have already been founded in the 80s and 90s have led to a starting industry consolidation, especially backed by private equity companies. Small-mid-size market players need to carefully evaluate strategic options, whether to take required investments into new technologies or to join forces with a potential strategic or financial investor.

Insights

Additive manufacturing is experiencing a new momentum thanks to high growth expectations. This trend is driven by increasing industrialization efforts to establish additive manufacturing as a production technology beyond pure prototyping. The transformation towards production applications has also led to a significant rise in new players and a highly fragmented landscape of industry participants. To become an alternative manufacturing technology, the industry will need to further drive digitization and automation of workflows in order to achieve required scalability.

Implications

From the beginning, the additive manufacturing industry has been driven by M&A and consolidation activities of large players. As most technological and digital innovations are coming from startups and small players, we expect this trend to continue. Recent IPOs, SPAC mergers, and increasing interest from outside the industry has led to a significantly larger number of players acting as consolidators and driving competition for attractive targets. On the other hand, small players with a strong niche position and innovative startups need to decide whether to grow their business alone and take the investment risk or find a strategic investor to capture synergies.

Energy
tech

Energy and climate tech companies are transforming the world’s largest markets with innovative sustainable alternatives. This is one of the fastest growing ecosystems in terms of investments.

Several trends are expected to further drive M&A dynamics in the sector:

  • Energy and climate tech companies typically focus on specific niches and seek larger corporations with complementary technologies or financial investors to expand and scale their market reach.
  • Larger companies in the energy and industrial sectors have been acquiring smaller tech firms to reduce their carbon footprints, achieve sustainability goals, and open up new markets and business opportunities.
  • There is a growing convergence between climate and industrial tech, driven by the need to reduce carbon emissions and mitigate the impact of climate change, while also improving industrial efficiency and productivity.

We specifically support companies through this complex industry transformation, working on buy-side and sell side transactions in the following segments:

  • Power generation, transmission, storage
  • Decarbonization
  • Energy management & efficiency

Take advantage of our extensive market know-how and industry networks to realize game changing strategic transactions.