M&A still a meaningful exit route for VC-backed businesses The contraction in overall M&A activity is also clear when looking only at transactions involving VC-backed European tech companies. The volume of transactions has fallen in 2023 across every category when seg- mented by the size of the transaction in terms of enterprise value. The mid-sized category involving transactions valued at between $100M and $1B has seen a particular slow- down year-on-year. So far in 2023, there have been just 11 transactions in this range, implying an expected full-year count of around 15. This would represent under half the number of similarly-sized transactions (31) recorded in 2022. Number of VC-backed M&A transactions by transaction value and by year, 2019 to 2023 >$1B $100M-$1B