If you run an AWS, Azure or Google Cloud partner, the firms buying businesses like yours are consultancies such as Accenture, IBM and Devoteam, IT groups adding cloud teams such as SoftwareOne and CDW, and regional cloud groups that grew by acquisition. Accenture has bought the most. When buyers give a reason, most name a capability they wanted, such as certified skills on one of the clouds. All buyers together made 541 acquisitions of cloud services firms from 2015 to 2025. Deals peaked at 77 in 2021 and were down to 46 in 2025.
Firms like yours have sold at a median of 1.3 times revenue (31 deals from 2015 to 2025) and 8.0 times EBITDA (10 deals). The busiest buyers of the decade have slowed. Six of the top nine, Accenture among them, have made one deal each since 2023. Twelve buyers have made two or more deals since then. Only IBM, Devoteam and CDW are among the top nine, and half of the twelve are backed by funds.
Cloud services M&A: 2015-2025 in numbers
Cloud services M&A peaked in 2021. It has eased since but stayed above every year before 2020.
The fall in 2025 came from trade buyers such as consultancies and IT groups. Funds and the platforms they back, known here as financial buyers, made 26 deals that year, about as many as in each year since 2020. With trade buyers down, that was more than half of all the deals in 2025.
Europe took 239 deals in all, more than North America. Germany, Austria and Switzerland grew fastest, from one deal before 2020 to 28 since, half of them by financial buyers.
Why cloud services firms are being bought
When a buyer says why it bought a cloud firm, the reason names a capability it wanted in 81% of those deals, against 66% across IT services. Scale comes up in about one in six of them, against one in four across IT services. These shares come from the quarter or so of deals whose announcement gives a reason, in the buyer’s own wording.
More than a third of the deals cross a border, and that is a floor, since a foreign buyer can sign through a local subsidiary.
The most active buyers of cloud services providers at a glance
Deal counts cover announced acquisitions of cloud professional-services firms from 2015 to 2025, families consolidated.
| # | Buyer | Type and owner today | 2015-2019 | 2020-2022 | 2023-2025 | Total |
|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| 1 |  Accenture | Consultancy; listed | 3 | 8 | 1 | 12 |
| 2 |  IBM | Technology and consulting group; listed | 2 | 6 | 3 | 11 |
| 3 |  Devoteam | IT consulting and cloud group; private, controlled by its founders and KKR | 4 | 4 | 2 | 10 |
| 4 |  Cognizant, incl. New Signature | IT services and consulting group; listed | 5 | 3 | 1 | 9 |
| 5 |  Deloitte | Professional services network; owned by its partners | 4 | 2 | 1 | 7 |
| 5 |  SoftwareOne, incl. Crayon | Software and cloud services group; listed | 2 | 4 | 1 | 7 |
| 7 |  Claranet | Managed-cloud and hosting group; privately owned, with growth investment from private equity firms | 4 | 1 | 1 | 6 |
| 8 |  CDW, incl. Mission | IT solutions provider; listed | 2 | 1 | 2 | 5 |
| 8 |  Proact | IT infrastructure and cloud services group; listed in Stockholm | 1 | 3 | 1 | 5 |
Together the nine made 72 deals, 13% of the total. Most cloud firms are bought by buyers outside this table.
Three Kinds of Buyers and What Each Means for You
Global Consultancies
Accenture has bought more cloud firms than any other buyer in our data, 12 in 2015-2025. It buys hyperscaler-certified migration specialists, mostly in the US and Europe, some in Australia.
IBM made 11 cloud acquisitions, with a peak in 2020-2022. It tends to buy regional migration or managed-services firms that feed its consulting arm and its hybrid-cloud services.
Devoteam, the French IT consulting and cloud group, made 10 in seven European countries. Three were Google Cloud partners, in Sweden, the Netherlands and Belgium.
Cognizant made nine, counting four that New Signature, a Microsoft partner, made before Cognizant bought it in 2020. In 2025 it agreed to buy 3Cloud, another Azure specialist. An Azure shop fits it best.
Deloitte made seven through its member firms, in Australia, New Zealand, Canada, the US, Japan and France.
A consultancy buys certified capability and folds your team into its own. Your partner status weighs most with it.
Managed-Cloud Platforms Built Through Acquisitions
Claranet, Proact, Qodea and Co-native all grew by buying regional providers.
Claranet, the UK managed-cloud and hosting group, has made six cloud acquisitions, four of them before 2020. They took it from Britain into Europe and on to Brazil. It has bought twice as many managed-services and hosting firms as cloud firms; those count on our page on who is buying MSPs.
Proact made five, in the Netherlands, the UK, Sweden and Germany.
Co-native made four Swedish acquisitions in 2023 and 2024. The private equity firm Segulah has backed it since it was formed in 2022. The sellers of two of its firms stayed on and took shares in the group.
Qodea is the newest. A UK Google Cloud partner, it was formed when CTS took over Appsbroker in 2023 and has since agreed further purchases in the UK and Sweden. It has traded as Beyond since April 2026.
Platforms differ on your brand. Proact kept the name of the British firm it bought in 2025, while Co-native merged its 2024 purchase into one of the companies it already owned.
IT and Software Groups Adding Cloud Services
SoftwareOne, the Swiss software company, bought hyperscaler-focused migration firms in Europe, Asia-Pacific and the US. Its seven deals include one by Crayon, which it took over in July 2025.
CDW made five, all in the US, counting two in 2018 by the business that became Mission. In December 2024 CDW agreed to buy Mission, an AWS Premier Tier partner, as its dedicated AWS practice.
These groups buy cloud services plus a team in a country they want, so the hyperscaler you work with and the market you serve decide whether you fit.
Buyers also differ by cloud. Our pages on who is buying AWS partners, Microsoft Azure partners and Google Cloud partners rank the buyers of each.
Active private equity investors in cloud services
Financial buyers made 35% of these deals from 2015 to 2025, a little above their share across IT services. Most of their deals, 133 of 188, were add-ons to a platform a fund already owned. The most active of these platforms made four. The funds behind the platforms buying now include Segulah (Co-native) and Marlin Equity Partners (Qodea). See our ranking of the top private equity investors in IT services.
Add-on announcements rarely say whether the founder reinvested; Co-native’s, where sellers took shares in the group, are an exception. If a platform asks you to reinvest part of your price in its shares, ask what class of equity you would hold and where it ranks behind the platform’s debt.
What cloud services providers sell for
Across disclosed acquisitions from 2015 to 2025, cloud services providers changed hands at a median of 1.3x revenue on 31 deals and 8.0x EBITDA on 10. On revenue the spread is wide, with the middle half of deals between 0.7x and 2.4x. The median size of those 31 deals was $15M.
| Multiple | Deals with a multiple | Lower quartile | Median | Upper quartile | All IT services, median |
|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| EV/Revenue | 31 | 0.7x | 1.3x | 2.4x | 1.1x |
| EV/EBITDA | 10 | 6.8x | 8.0x | 10.3x | 10.3x |
On revenue, cloud firms sell a little above the IT services median. On EBITDA the ten deals with a multiple sit below it, at 8.0x against 10.3x. For the factors that move the multiple and recent deals, see our cloud services valuation multiples analysis.
What you receive and how it is paid
Where the stake is known, 88% of private cloud firms were sold whole at once and 12% sold a majority first. Devoteam has bought majorities with options to buy the rest later, priced at market value or on performance over two to five years.
Where listed IT services buyers disclose them, earn-outs are usually 5% to 15% of the price. They run one to four years, mostly on EBITDA or on revenue and EBITDA together. Where an earn-out depends on the seller staying, some listed buyers book it as a staff cost, not as price. Part of what is called price can be pay for staying. Compare offers on the cash at closing plus whatever you are paid even if you leave.
Ask, too, what happens to an earn-out if the buyer is itself sold, and get change-of-control terms into the agreement. Buyers in this market do get sold. 3Cloud passed to Cognizant on 1 January 2026.
Who is buying next
The three busiest buyers since 2023 are two fund-backed platforms and IBM. Financial buyers made 42% of the 179 cloud services deals in 2023 to 2025.
| Buyer | Type and owner today | Deals 2023-2025 | Where |
|---|---|---|---|
 Co-native | Swedish cloud group; backed by Segulah, a private equity firm, since 2022 | 4 | Sweden |
| IBM | Technology and consulting group; listed | 3 | France, UK, Japan |
 Qodea (now Beyond) | UK Google Cloud partner; Marlin Equity Partners | 3 | UK, Sweden |
Nine more made two each, four of them backed by funds. In our view a platform buys hardest in the first years after a fund invests and slows as that fund prepares to sell, so if one writes to you, ask how long its fund has owned it.
What this means if you’re selling a cloud services provider
Buyers buy cloud firms for what they can do, so your certified skills and the partner status that proves them are the core of what you sell. Use the current partner names when you present the business. Microsoft replaced its Gold and Silver competencies with Solutions Partner designations in 2022, and Azure Expert MSP is its badge for managed cloud. On AWS the top services tier is Premier. Google Cloud’s partner network now has Diamond at the top, with Premier below it.
The buyer that writes to you first is one of several that could want your firm. We run a competitive process among the consultancies, IT groups and platforms with a real reason to want it, so you choose between the best offers and get the best price. Our note on strategic versus financial buyers says how the two kinds of offer differ.
Thinking about selling your cloud business?
If you are weighing a sale, we can talk in confidence about timing and about which of these buyers fits your firm. Talk to our team.
About Aventis Advisors
Aventis Advisors is an M&A advisory firm focused on technology and IT services companies. We advise founders and owners on company sales, growth capital, and strategic transactions, combining sector focus with proprietary deal data such as the database behind this article. To discuss your options, get in touch.
Methodology
We count acquisitions announced worldwide from 2015 to 2025 of cloud consulting, migration and cloud-management firms, many of them AWS, Azure or Google Cloud partners. The data comes from our deal database, built from Mergermarket and public sources such as news articles, company press releases and annual reports. Payment terms come from listed buyers’ filings.
Each buyer is counted under today’s owner, with the earlier deals of the businesses it now owns. Management buyouts are left out of the buyer counts. Financial buyers are funds and the platforms they back.
Managed services and hosting firms count on our page on who is buying MSPs, and hyperscaler partners in other parts of IT services on our three partner pages. The IT services comparison uses all IT services deals in the same database, as in our IT services valuation multiples report.
This page is part of our ranking of the top strategic acquirers of IT services companies.
