If you’re running a data or AI consulting firm, now might be the time to pick up the phone. According to a recent analysis by investment bank JEGI CLARITY, Data & AI, along with Business Intelligence and Analytics, are the hottest sectors in the M&A market right now. And it’s not just about buzzwords—strategic buyers are coming in with a clear checklist.
JEGI CLARITY’s findings come from deep-dive conversations with senior corporate development teams and industry experts. The goal? To uncover exactly what strategic acquirers are seeking across verticals, capabilities, deal sizes, and even preferred software ecosystems.
What Buyers Want: Scale, Specialization, and Stickiness
Today’s buyers aren’t just shopping for generic consultancies—they’re chasing firms with clear market leadership, recurring revenue, and scalable, in-demand services. But that’s just the baseline.
What makes a target stand out in this crowded space?
- Vertical Specialization: Firms that dominate specific, data-intensive industries (think: healthcare, financial services, manufacturing) are far more attractive than generalists.
- Premium Partnerships: Having top-tier status with major platforms—like Snowflake, Databricks, Microsoft, or Salesforce—is a big plus. It signals credibility, technical depth, and client stickiness.
- Tech Differentiators: Acquirers want firms that have gone beyond services—those that have built proprietary tools or automated workflows that drive scale, margin, and efficiency.
- End-to-End Capabilities: Integrated offerings—from data strategy to AI model deployment—are in high demand, especially as clients push for digital transformation that doesn’t stop at proof-of-concept.
It’s Not Just About Growth—It’s About Platform Fit
Strategic buyers are increasingly building or expanding software-specific platforms, and they’re looking for firms that already play nicely within those ecosystems. That includes:
- Data engineering partners who specialize in tools like Fivetran, dbt, or Apache Airflow
- AI consultants who can deploy on top of AWS SageMaker, Azure Machine Learning, or Google Vertex AI
- Business intelligence firms with deep Tableau, Power BI, or Looker integration experience
In short: if your firm is solving real problems for enterprise clients using the same stack the buyer is investing in, you’re already halfway through the door.
From Expertise to Exit
According to JEGI CLARITY, firms that combine technical excellence with industry-specific insight are commanding a premium. And that makes sense: many enterprises aren’t just shopping for data dashboards—they want partners who understand how to unlock value in their particular domain.
Add to that the ongoing macro trends—AI regulation, workforce automation, and increasing enterprise reliance on clean, well-structured data—and you’ve got an M&A environment where the best-positioned firms are fielding multiple offers.
The message to founders and execs? Don’t just be good at data. Be good at data in context.
Download the Full Insights
JEGI CLARITY has made its full set of research slides available, including buyer priorities by region, platform alignment maps, and valuation benchmarks across deal tiers.
For firms in the Data & AI consulting space, the window of opportunity is wide open—but positioning is everything. Buyers are more informed than ever, and they’re looking for clear signals of fit, value, and
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