The AI boom has set the stage for a wave of tech M&A this year.

After 2 consecutive years of decline, tech M&A deals were up in 2024, with some of the largest deals centering on AI. AI companies have also bucked the general downward trend in exit valuations, instead seeing nearly double the median acquisition price from 2023 to 2024.

Using CB Insights’ predictive signals, such as Mosaic and M&A Probability, we’ve identified 7 AI-related areas where we expect to see M&A activity this year, as well as high-potential acquisition targets for each.

See highlights below, and download the full report for the rationale behind each prediction, as well as M&A target shortlists.

Tech M&A prediction highlights

• Big tech players set their sights on humanoid robotic: As physical AI takes off thanks to the rise of LLMs, humanoid robotics is becoming big tech’s next battlefield. Among high-potential acquisition targets, 1x stands out for its dual focus on industrial and consumer humanoids (just in January, it acquired Kind Humanoid to accelerate household robot development). This makes it a prime target for Meta, which recently announced plans to enter the consumer humanoid market.
• Enterprise tech heavyweights compete for AI infrastructure dominance: We’re already seeing strong signals from cash-rich companies such as Cisco and IBM, which are future-proofing their business models with AI investments. Hardware-aware AI optimization players CentML and Nota AI — which help accelerate AI model deployment while reducing compute costs — appear in our AI infrastructure acquisition target list. These companies have already shown quantifiable efficiency improvements as well as validation from Nvidia as a partner or investor.

Source: CB Insights advanced search. Data is dynamic (as of 2/27/2025).

• Data center energy demands fuel interest in cooling tech: Companies offering immersion and liquid cooling solutions enjoyed a funding rebound last year, attracting a combined $120M in fresh funding. Hypertec and Submer are high-potential acquisition targets in this space.
• Professional services firms seek AI capabilities: GenAI is coming for knowledge jobs — and leading professional services firms are buying AI capabilities to get ahead of it. One area where we see high M&A potential for professional services firms is to cater to clients’ responsible AI needs, with potential acquisition targets such as Lasso Security and HydroX AI.
• Pharma companies target AI drug discovery startups: AI drug discovery M&A is surging, with 12 deals in the sector since 2023. That M&A deal volume reflects both a maturing technology and growing urgency among pharma players to bring AI tech in-house.
• SaaS giants fortify their offerings with AI agent acquisitions: While some believe AI agents signal the death of SaaS companies, we anticipate SaaS leaders will acquire AI agent companies to avoid disruption. We’re already starting to see this happen with ServiceNow acquiring Moveworks for close to $3B in March 2025.

Source: CB Insights — ServiceNow Acquisition Insights

• Coding AI agents drive next wave of AI agent consolidation: Explosive growth, soaring valuations, a fractured AI agent landscape, and rising doubts about revenue defensibility make the coding AI agents market ripe for consolidation. While some players like Cursor look too expensive for an acquisition, we’ve identified Warp, Vidoc, and Bito as likely targets with high Mosaic scores and higher-than-average M&A Probabilities.

What is Mosaic?

Mosaic is CB Insights’ proprietary metric that measures the overall health and growth potential of private companies using non-traditional signals. Mosaic is widely used as a target company and market screener to identify high-potential emerging tech companies, typically defined as those with a score of 510 or higher.

What is M&A Probability?

M&A Probability is CB Insights’ proprietary signal that measures a private company’s chance of an M&A exit within the next 2 years. It is used to quickly screen and triangulate companies based on exit likelihood.

Combining both Mosaic Score and M&A Probability makes it easy to shortlist acquisition targets.

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While AI copilots — which work alongside humans to speed up their workflows — currently comprise 90% of company activity, the tech will serve as a stepping stone to more autonomous solutions in the coming years. Eventually, AI agents could manage entire industrial processes, shifting human roles from operational tasks to strategic oversight.

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Despite the declines, global regions like the US and Europe have made gains in median deal sizes this year, and both the US and EU continue to provide government grants and loans to climate tech solutions. China, on the other hand, has rolled back some of its clean energy subsidies, and VC enthusiasm has waned in the country this year.

Globally, governments are focusing more on early-stage technologies that are ready for commercialization. Two prime examples in the US are nuclear fusion energy and direct air capture of CO2, both of which have received substantial funding from the US Department of Energy this year.

Download the full report to access comprehensive data and charts on the evolving state of climate tech across sectors, geographies, and more.

Below, we cover key shifts in Q3’24.

• Climate tech funding falls to $4.8B in Q3’24, marking the lowest point since Q2’20. Venture capital has shifted away from the sector as high interest rates impact climate tech’s capital-intensive projects and as investors pivot toward AI, which tends to feature more rapid developments and shorter commercialization timelines.

• M&A activity drops dramatically in Q3’24, with only 43 deals completed — a more than 50% decline from the previous quarter. While notable exits like Kyte Powertech ($277M valuation) and SRE Power ($72M) suggest a steady appetite for grid infrastructure solutions, the overall slowdown signals a more selective M&A environment, potentially limiting exit opportunities for highly valued climate tech companies.

• US and European deal sizes show resilience despite the slowdown in global funding. In the US, the median deal size has reached $6M in 2024 YTD (up from $4.3M in 2023), while Europe’s median deal size has grown to $4.9M (up from $3.7M in 2023), indicating sustained investor confidence in these markets.

• Despite declines in overall climate tech funding, companies commercializing solutions in carbon capture, utilization, and storage (CCUS) continue to secure significant capital, as demonstrated by Twelve‘s $200M Series C round in September. Twelve is using the funding to finish building its Washington state facility, where it will produce sustainable aviation fuel (SAF) that it claims can deliver up to 90% emissions reduction compared to conventional jet fuel.

Source: CB Insights — Twelve Funding Insights

• Electric vehicle technology funding reaches a critical low of $0.6B in Q3’24, marking its lowest point since early 2020. However, the sector still attracted notable deals, including 24M Technologies‘ $87M Series H round at a $1.3B valuation, pointing to selective investor appetite for more mature EV tech companies.

More energy resources from CB insights:

• 5 climate tech markets gaining momentum in 2024
• The grid tech market map: The companies tackling the growing need for reliable electricity
• The energy impact of generative AI: 3 technologies transforming the future of data centers
• Analyzing 15 oil & gas leaders’ tech priorities: Here’s where incumbents are buying, investing, and partnering
• Sodium-ion batteries are poised for a breakout moment — energy players should prepare
• Why energy giants should have green ammonia on their radar

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Essential resources to understand the direction of advanced manufacturing:

• Future of the factory — We explore the evolution of the factory and the technologies propelling it forward, from generative AI-powered humanoid robots to the industrial metaverse.

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However, semiconductor manufacturing is immensely complex, extending across a vast value chain from the production of ultra-high-purity raw materials to chip design, assembly, and testing.

This complexity, coupled with geopolitical tensions, has made semiconductor manufacturing a focal point for national security and economic policy. Governments and industry leaders are racing to build more resilient supply chains to support critical technologies like high-performance computing and defense systems.

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Humans will still play a crucial role — but instead of assembling parts or operating machinery, they will maintain robots and keep them running.

In these future factories, robots coordinate in unison, completing work automatically — without breaks, every hour of the day — to get products out the door. 

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While Nvidia initially developed its graphics processing units (GPUs) for gaming, these chips turned out to be ideal for powering AI tasks. Now, the company is focusing its efforts on providing the computing hardware — notably its A100 and H100 GPUs — and the software infrastructure required for developing generative AI applications.

Amid the generative AI rush, Nvidia has grown rapidly. In fact, it recently surpassed Microsoft and Apple to become the world’s most valuable company. To bolster its leadership position and keep ahead of AI computing competitors like AMD and Intel, Nvidia has forged relationships with companies across the AI landscape.

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While most genAI initiatives are still in early stages of development, incumbents and startups are betting heavily on its potential.

ABB, for instance, has identified over 100 internal applications for the tech, from robotics to predictive maintenance. Retrocausal, which develops a computer vision-enabled AI copilot for the assembly line, estimates that genAI can reduce manual assembly time by a third.

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Driving the upswing: Humanoid robot funding has reached a record annual level just 4 months into the year, while investment in the operational technology (OT) security tools that can help protect them has already outpaced the previous 2 years combined.

Despite the gains, sector-wide deal count fell to its lowest quarterly level since 2016. This mirrors the broader pullback in venture dealmaking globally. 

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The company has faced multiple high-profile incidents over the past 6 years — including crashes involving its planes and a fuselage blowout. This series of events has resulted in a decline in consumer trust, aggravated airlines, and lost sales to rival Airbus.

Amid these challenges, Boeing has shaken up its corporate leadership and moved to improve its manufacturing quality. For instance, the company is exploring a reintegration with Spirit AeroSystems to help address production flaws.

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Large language models (LLMs) are enabling new capabilities with simulation and generative design, empowering humanoid robots, and paving the way for copilots to improve productivity across manufacturing, sales, and the aftermarket.

With the growing focus on software-defined, electric vehicles, and as automakers look to build a more digital-forward car buying experience, these technologies are growing increasingly relevant.

Using the CB Insights technology intelligence platform, we analyzed signals such as funding, analyst briefings, business relationships, headcount growth, Mosaic scores, and more to identify 15 high-momentum technologies that auto stakeholders should be watching in 2024.

Our 19-page report digs into trends like:

• AI and quantum computing are accelerating vehicle development and reducing R&D costs, allowing OEMs to introduce new designs, prototypes, and materials.
• Automotive production will see gains from more sophisticated robotics and automation solutions, laying the groundwork for cost-effective, modular production of next-generation vehicles.
• AI is enabling a more personalized, efficient automotive sales process, with new fintech solutions and engagement tools speeding up the sales cycle and improving accessibility for car buyers.
• Connected vehicle technology is enabling real-time visibility into vehicle health and security, providing OEMs with valuable data to enhance other facets of the value chain and the in-vehicle experience.
• Chatbots and computer vision-led inspection solutions are driving efficiencies in vehicle repair, improving service desk productivity and technician accuracy.

And much more. Download the full report to see them all.

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A handful of developers are targeting 2024 to release their humanoid robots, which are designed to perform tasks similar to humans. Technologies like generative AI and reinforcement learning are helping drive this progress. However, the impact will be limited at first, and it will likely take 3-5 years to see more widespread commercial rollout and usefulness.

Below, we dive into 6 industries that humanoids will impact the most in both the near- and long-term, as well as the technology firms making this possible:

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The company maintains a robust internal combustion portfolio, but it has aggressively invested across the entire vehicle electrification ecosystem. Despite scaling back its EV production goals to account for fluctuating consumer demand, GM remains committed to electric vehicles and plans to have the capacity to produce 1M EVs by 2025.

Meanwhile, GM has also pulled back from fully autonomous driving by reducing spending on Cruise — its autonomous vehicle (AV) subsidiary — and moved investments away from AV companies. However, the company has retained its focus on its advanced driver assistance system (ADAS), Super Cruise.

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AI cuts across practically every emerging area of activity. For instance, on-demand manufacturing companies are using AI to automatically match clients with vendors, while manufacturing analytics platforms use it to generate real-time insights from factories and process plants.

Early-stage companies in these areas focus on a range of manufacturing industries, including aerospace, automotive, consumer products, oil & gas, pharmaceuticals, and semiconductors.

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However, as deal sizes have gotten smaller, the space has seen a corresponding shift toward early-stage dealmaking. In 2023, 69% of climate tech deals went to early-stage companies — an increase of 14 percentage points vs. 2022.

Using CB Insights data, we break down the climate tech landscape and the markets and startups seeing the most traction.

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2024 is set to see the commercial release of several new humanoid robots, which resemble the human body and can perform tasks traditionally carried out by humans in areas like manufacturing, logistics, and retail.

The surge is propelled by advancements in AI, pilot programs demonstrating commercial viability, and significant investment from big tech. In particular, robotics developers are targeting more realistic human-robot interactions using large language models (LLMs) and natural language processing.

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This 77% drop brought advanced manufacturing funding to its lowest quarterly level since 2018.

However, deal count largely remained level for the second straight quarter.

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New possibilities have emerged thanks to the proliferation of satellite launches — with SpaceX alone conducting a record 98 launches during 2023 — combined with the affordability of drones and advancements in imaging technologies.

This progress opens opportunities for startups and incumbents, helping expand geospatial use cases and capabilities across industries like agriculture, automotive, construction, defense & national security, insurance, manufacturing, mining, oil & gas, and more.

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These robots resemble the human form and are designed to be multi-talented, making it possible to swap them in for complex tasks normally handled by flesh-and-bone employees. Popular robot forms like automated guided vehicles (AGVs) & autonomous mobile robots (AMRs) and collaborative robotic arms are much less flexible.

However, humanoid robots are complicated to build and deploy. They require substantial sensor processing, advanced control, and complex skill execution. They also need multimodal artificial intelligence (AI) to understand the environment around them.

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The company first introduced electric vehicles (EVs) in 2013 with its i3 vehicle. Since then, the automaker has continued to leverage investments and partnerships to develop its EV models as well as pursue its ambitions in autonomous vehicles, such as via its collaboration with NVIDIA.

Looking ahead, BMW is aiming to introduce solid-state batteries in vehicles after 2025, a leap forward in battery technology that is expected to bring down the costs of EVs while also increasing their range. The company is leaning on investments and partnerships with companies like Solid Power to reach that goal. Further, the automaker is building its expertise in areas like grid tech to help support the rollout of electric vehicles.

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