M&A in TICC Industry 2026: Testing, Inspection, Certification, and Compliance

Testing, inspection, certification and compliance (TICC) has become one of the most active corners of the M&A market. The services provided by TICC companies are essential for every industry you can imagine and for this reason, there is growing interest from private equity and corporate acquirers alike in this sector.

In this article, we will dive deeper into the M&A activity and valuations of TICC companies over the last decade, find out how valuations of TICC businesses differ by regions, and who are the most active acquirers in TICC.

This analysis is based on nearly 3,700 TICC M&A deals. Our methodology for collecting this data primarily includes Mergermarket, and is complemented by our own desk research and a review of annual reports of listed TICC companies to ensure we have the widest coverage of TICC M&A deals possible. We only consider majority TICC acquisitions in our analysis, i.e., deals where a minimum of 51% stake is acquired.

Before we jump into the numbers, let’s recap what does a TICC business actually do. Put simply, TICC companies are responsible for testing and inspecting your business, and if all your activities comply with legal and regulatory standards, they will provide you with a certificate to continue your operations.

TICC M&A Deal Volume

M&A activity in TICC has been on the rise. Deal activity in TICC doubled in the last decade from 216 deals in 2015 to 443 deals in 2025. If you look at the chart below, you will clearly see two distinct phases of M&A activity.

• 2015 and 2020 period: TICC M&A activity was roughly steady in this period between 200-300 deals a year.
• After 2020: TICC M&A activity stepped up sharply, and the main driver was the rise of private equity deals. PE sponsors were attracted by what TICC offered, i.e., recurring, regulation-driven revenue, a largely asset-light business model (except for laboratory networks), and a fragmented market in many countries full of small, founder-owned labs that suit buy-and-build strategies. Plenty of uninvested PE capital and cheap financing in 2020 and 2021 added fuel to M&A activity.

Our analysis of the rise in private equity backed TICC deals after 2020 shows that PE activity took two forms:

1. New TICC platforms built from scratch – Several of today’s most active consolidators did not exist as acquirers before 2020. Certania (backed by Greenpeak Partners and Summit Partners) in the DACH region and Celnor Group (Inflexion) in the UK have each completed dozens of acquisitions in just a few years. In the US, Certerra and Universal Engineering Sciences were built the same way.

2. Existing platforms that found a new PE sponsor and accelerated – Phenna Group is the clearest example which had completed only a handful of deals before 2020, then close to a hundred after Inflexion and later Oakley Capital invested. Alliance Technical Group (ATG, acquired by Blackstone in 2026), Normec (backed by Astorg) and Amtivo followed a similar path.

Today, some private equity firms execute multi-country TICC roll-ups, combining regional labs with digital systems and unified branding. Others focus on vertical integration, acquiring both testing and inspection capacity as well as software tools for quality assurance and compliance reporting.

As of September 2026, some of these PE-backed TICC platforms have started to consider exits.

TICC M&A Deals by Geography

We also looked at which countries and regions are driving the most activity in TICC M&A.

At the country level, the United States is the clear epicentre of TICC deal activity. Around 30% of all targets since 2015 were American companies, almost twice as many as in the United Kingdom, the second-largest market. Germany, France, Canada, the Netherlands and Spain follow, but each accounts for only a small share of deals.

Europe leads as a region in TICC M&A because its activity is spread across many countries, while in North America it is concentrated in the US.

The US market is largely consolidated by domestic buyers, many of them PE-backed platforms such as Alliance Technical Group and Certerra.

European buyer groups, led by Eurofins, SGS, Element and SOCOTEC, are the main foreign buyers of US targets. In smaller markets such as Italy, Spain and Australia, most targets are bought by foreign groups. As a result, nearly half of all TICC deals are cross-border.

Looking at the flows between the two largest regions, European groups bought 313 North American TICC businesses since 2015, a quarter of all North American targets and around 2.4 times the 132 European deals made by North American buyers. The US is the core of this flow: it accounts for 88% of North American TICC deals, and European groups bought around a quarter (24%) of all US targets.

Asia-Pacific shows potential, but the share of deal volume is well below those of Western markets; likely due to lower disclosure rates, differing regulatory frameworks, and fewer buy-and-build platforms established in the region so far.

For TICC business owners in smaller markets, these dynamics offer acquisition upside for cross-border buyers. While local TIC firms may attract fewer inbound approaches, their scarcity can be a strength, especially for international buyers seeking access to specific geographies or regulatory frameworks.

TICC M&A deals by industry segment

Not every TICC segment grew at the same pace. Environmental and EHS targets were the most acquired segment, with deals rising from 41 in 2015 to 116 in 2025. Construction and built environment (3.1x) and certification (2.5x) deals also more than doubled, while industrial inspection grew modestly (1.3x) and food, agri and consumer product testing stayed flat.

Calibration shows the highest growth multiple (4.5x), but from a small base of four deals in 2015. In absolute terms, environmental, construction and certification targets account for most of the increase in TICC M&A since 2015.

Strategic vs. financial buyers of TICC companies

As highlighted above, a clear shift occurred post 2020. Private equity investors captured an increasingly large share of TICC deal activity. As the chart below shows, the share of deals made by PE-owned buyers (PE funds investing directly and PE-backed companies making add-on acquisitions) rose from 40% in 2015 to 60% in 2025, and 64% so far as of September 2026.

This shift reflects structural changes in the market and the growing playbook of buy-and-build strategies aimed at consolidating this fragmented industry.

The TIC sector has many of the ingredients PE investors look for:

• Predictable, recurring revenues from certification surveillance cycles, mandated periodic inspections and contract-based testing programs
• Asset-light models in inspection and certification with attractive cash conversion, while laboratory networks carry more equipment capex
• Mission-critical services that embed companies in customer supply chains
• Opportunities for geographic and sectoral roll-ups due to market fragmentation

Most active acquirers in TICC

In our analysis of nearly 3,700 TICC deals, we see a wide range of buyers, from global TICC groups to PE-backed platforms and smaller regional players. Within that crowd, a handful of consolidators stand out. Eurofins Scientific is by far the most acquisitive buyer, with 245 deals since 2015, followed by Phenna Group and SGS. The most active buyers each made at least 60 acquisitions over the period, but they follow very different playbooks.

Some are specialists that buy the same kind of business again and again: Eurofins focuses on food, environmental and pharma testing labs, Trescal on calibration labs, and Onterris on environmental testing. Others, such as Phenna Group, SGS and Bureau Veritas, buy across many TICC segments to broaden their service range and enter new markets.

TICC M&A: most active acquirers, 2015 – Sep 2026

Acquirer	Type	Deals 2015-26	Deals 2020-26	What they acquire
	Listed strategic	245	137	Narrow lab focus: food & agri, environmental and pharma / bioanalytical testing labs, mostly small local bolt-ons
	PE-backed rollup	103	97	Broadest mix: statutory inspection, construction materials & geotechnical testing, certification bodies and H&S compliance
	Listed strategic	103	63	Diversified: food & nutrition, connectivity & product testing, minerals & energy, industrial inspection and ESG verification
	PE-backed strategic	90	65	Built environment: construction materials testing, building inspection, environmental and acoustics consultancies
	PE-backed strategic	90	57	Pure play calibration and metrology labs worldwide, from general calibration to aerospace and life-science specialists
	Listed strategic	86	44	Diversified today under LEAP 28 strategy, previously it was more certification led such as management-systems, building control, ESG and consumer testing
	PE-backed rollup	69	33	Lab specialist: food, feed and beverage testing, cosmetics, pharma and medical-device testing labs
	Strategic	66	55	Certification and inspection bodies: management systems, product and energy certification, statutory inspection
	Listed strategic	60	27	Environmental specialist: environmental labs, air emissions testing, permitting and compliance consulting

The list of most active TICC buyers once again confirms how much the buyer landscape has shifted towards private equity. Four of the nine most active acquirers are PE-backed strategics or rollup platforms: Phenna Group, SOCOTEC, Trescal and Tentamus.

Phenna has been buying faster than many of the established global groups in the last five years. These platforms typically acquire small, founder-owned businesses and integrate them into a larger group, which means the pool of active buyers for a niche TICC company is now much wider than the traditional listed players.

For founders, the key point is that the right buyer depends on what your TICC business does. A specialist calibration lab or environmental testing business may attract the most interest from a focused consolidator in its field, while a company offering a mix of inspection, certification and compliance services may be a better fit for a diversified group or a PE-backed platform looking to add new capabilities. For inspection businesses, our inspection company valuations show which buyers have been most active in each inspection segment, and our testing laboratory valuations do the same for each kind of laboratory, from calibration to environmental testing.

TICC company valuation multiples

Over the past decade, TICC companies have been valued at a median of 11.0x EV/EBITDA, with most deals falling between roughly 8x and 15x depending on several company specific factors. The average valuation for a TICC business is 11.3x EV/EBITDA between 2015 and 2026.

Based on Mergermarket data and our own research, the table below shows the multiples paid in TICC deals since 2015. We can confirm from our experience as an M&A advisory firm for TICC companies that the following multiples do reflect typical pricing levels in recent M&A transactions.

However, you must remember that these numbers offer a directional reference for business owners considering a transaction, but actual value depends on a range of factors such as the strategic narrative, underlying economics of the business, and competitive alternatives in your specific niche.

We advise looking at TICC valuation multiples not as a fixed “price tag,” but as an outcome of positioning, growth levers, and buyer fit.

In our experience advising on TICC deals:

• Revenue quality matters
  Buyers would be willing to pay more for firms with long-term contracts, low churn, and embedded relationships in high-compliance industries (e.g., food, medical devices, environmental, defense, cybersecurity, infrastructure).
• Profitability drives the top tier of valuations
  Companies trading at above average EBITDA margins (20% or more) combined with strategic differentiation, such as digital workflows, proprietary protocols, or global customer access. Another aspect to this is the size of the deal which we cover further in the article.
• Valuation outliers reflect just how varied TIC profiles can be
  The wide spread between quartiles reflects how variable TIC company profiles can be. Local labs with a narrow ISO/IEC 17025 accreditation scope and commodity test offerings will trade differently than multi-vertical players serving industrial or AI-driven applications.

TICC company valuations by target geography

If you own a TICC business, your location affects what buyers will pay, though not as much as size of the company or competition for the deal. Companies in North America and Europe have sold for similar median multiples over the past decade, around 11x EV/EBITDA. Asia-Pacific businesses have typically sold for less, at a median of 9.9x.

Within Europe, the United Kingdom stands out with a median of 12.0x, above the rest of Europe, despite its deals being smaller on average. This reflects how competitive the UK market has become, with many PE-backed platforms bidding for the same founder-owned businesses.

We see this in our conversations with acquirers, too: buyers’ expectations differ by country, but competition for a target and its scale usually matter more than its address.

With this said, founders and acquirers should know geography alone is not a determinant of the valuation of your TICC business. Let’s look into the size of the deal as a potential valuation factor.

TICC company valuations by deal size

In the TICC industry, deal size remains a key determinant of valuation multiples. Our analysis confirms a well-established pattern in M&A: larger targets command higher multiples, not only because of scale but also due to their strategic relevance, recurring revenue, and lower execution risk.

From our sample of disclosed deals, median EV/EBITDA multiples increase steadily with deal size:

• Deals below $10M in enterprise value typically trade at around 6x EBITDA (most between 4x and 8x), reflecting smaller, regional labs with limited service breadth and weaker customer stickiness.
• Deals between $10M and $50M see a clear jump in valuations, with a median of around 9x, especially for targets with sector specialization or strong regulatory positioning.
• Deals between $50M and $100M attract around 11x, supported by broader service offerings, stronger client bases and recognized accreditations.
• Transactions above $100M command the highest multiples, with a median of over 13x, a premium tied to scale, scarcity, multi-country footprint and platform potential. The top quartile of these larger deals reaches 19x and above.

The spread is significant and structural. Buyers, mainly private equity funds, are willing to pay for scale, operational leverage, and entry into regulated, high-barrier verticals like healthcare, renewables, environmental, and AI-enabled risk management.

At the same time, the lower end of the market remains attractive for bolt-on strategies, albeit at discounted valuations. For founders of smaller TIC businesses, this highlights a clear strategic path: building scale and differentiation remains the most reliable way to access premium valuation bands.

Why You Should Partner with a TIC M&A Advisor

Valuations in the TIC sector depend on more than just financials, as buyers reward specialization, scale, and strategic fit. However, every TIC business is different, and navigating a sale requires sector-specific expertise.

An experienced TIC M&A advisor helps position your business effectively, runs a competitive process, and manages diligence to maximize value. While you focus on serving clients, they handle the deal, ensuring you secure the right partner at the right terms.

About Aventis Advisors

Aventis Advisors is an M&A advisory firm focused on technology and growth sectors, including Testing, Inspection, and Certification. We’ve analyzed over 3,000 TICC M&A transactions and advised founders and acquirers across Europe and North America on strategic exits, roll-ups, and growth capital solutions.

Our approach is straightforward: we prioritize quality over quantity. That means fewer deals, executed with care and insight, and complete alignment with the founder’s goals.

If you’re considering a sale or exploring strategic options, we’re here to help you move forward with clarity and confidence.