Tech M&A Tracker - Efex, Comms Group, IMG and more

Our Tech M&A Tracker rounds up all the mergers and acquisition activity within both the local and international technology industry this past three weeks. Send your M&A news to editors@techpartner.news

For our sister series covering local people movements, click here.

Efex acquires Melbourne-based MSP Crowd IT

Founded in 2020 by Chris Germon, Crowd IT has served as a technology partner for healthcare organisations across Victoria, supporting complex clinical environments, including medical imaging systems, clinical applications and healthcare specific infrastructure.

Comms Group to sell onPlatinum to efex for $30m

Acquired by Comms Group in 2022 for $12 million, onPlatinum expanded the company’s managed IT services, cloud and mid-market customer capabilities and expanded the Group’s presence in Queensland, New South Wales and Victoria.

Intelligent Monitoring Group to buy UK residential security provider for $347m

Providing an immediate presence in the UK market for the company, the acquisition is set to add A$12.5 million per month recurring revenue from more than 160,000 direct customers in what IMG claimed is one of the largest monitored security markets.

Qualcomm to buy startup Modular for $4 billion in AI software push

Buying Modular pits Qualcomm against ‌CUDA, the software platform that has helped underpin ‌Nvidia's ‌AI dominance by tying millions of developers to ‌the $5 trillion company's chips.

Scalare Partners acquires Fishburners

Scalare Partners has acquired Fishburners, an Australian startup community.

The combination of Fishburners and the existing Scalare ecosystem is expected to expand its capacity to support scalable early-stage technology startups and their access to infrastructure, services, and capital while generating revenue and proprietary deal flow for Scalare’s investment portfolio.

Founded more than 15 years ago, Fishburners has played a role in supporting Australian entrepreneurs through coworking, events, mentorship and founder programs.

Through this acquisition, Scalare intends to preserve and strengthen the Fishburners brand while integrating it into the broader Scalare ecosystem.

The acquisition further strengthens Scalare's mission to build Australia's most connected startup ecosystem, bringing Fishburners into an integrated network that includes Tank Stream Labs, The Founders Union, Planet Startup, Tech Ready Women, InHouse Ventures and the Australian Technologies Competition.

Fishburners members will be provided access to Tank Stream Labs locations nationally, including a dedicated Fishburners Hub within Tank Stream Labs’ flagship Kent Street, Sydney campus.

Scalare intends to relaunch the Fishburners Pitch Nights and founder showcase programs nationally, as well as planning to establish a Fishburners Investment Vehicle to invest in selected startups emerging from the Pitch Night program, subject to regulatory and commercial considerations

Founders will be able to gain broader access to Scalare’s ecosystem services including mentorship, capital readiness programs, investor introductions, founder education and growth advisory services.

Following completion of the acquisition, Scalare’s ecosystem will collectively represent more than 40,000 founders and startup participants across its brands and programs, as well as over 10,530 startups supported through coworking communities, accelerator programs and ecosystem initiatives.

Barracuda acquires Evo Security

Barracuda Networks has acquired Evo Security, an identity and access management (IAM) provider purpose‑built for managed service providers (MSPs).

The acquisition expands the BarracudaONE platform’s identity security capabilities, creating a partner-first platform unifying privileged access management (PAM), access control, identity protection, and identity threat detection and response.

By combining Evo Security’s identity solutions with Barracuda’s existing identity-driven controls, BarracudaONE delivers a unified, end-to-end identity security architecture through a single platform. This integrated approach gives partners one multi-tenant environment to deliver complete identity resilience, while customers gain modern protection without the operational burden of stitching together multiple tools.

Evo Security’s team has joined Barracuda, bringing deep identity expertise. Its technology will be embedded into BarracudaONE, and Barracuda will continue to support Evo Security’s existing MSPs as the platform expands.  

IQM Quantum Computers acquires assets of Quantistry GmbH

IQM Quantum Computers, specialists in full-stack superconducting quantum computers, have acquired selected assets of Quantistry GmbH, a Berlin-based developer of cloud-native simulation workflow platform for automotive, aerospace, chemical, materials and pharmaceutical industries.

The acquired assets include proprietary software applications, algorithms, and intellectual property. IQM will also retain Quantistry's core technical, quantum chemistry, and software engineering talent, ensuring seamless continuity and rapid platform integration.

The transaction completed concurrently with IQM's business combination with Real Asset Acquisition Corp. (RAAQ), which made IQM the first publicly listed quantum computer company from Europe.

This transaction integrates Quantistry's application software platform, algorithm simulation libraries, and machine learning layer with IQM's hardware infrastructure, creating a powerful full-stack solution designed to accelerate industrial research and development across automotive, aerospace, chemicals, materials science, and pharmaceuticals.

The company plans to transition and expand these enterprise relationships under the IQM brand, offering clients a continuum of classical simulation, AI-driven optimisation, and quantum acceleration — with a clear path to continuously upgrade their systems, optimise their operations, and deliver innovative, cutting-edge solutions to their own customers.

Quantistry’s software will connect directly to IQM’s quantum computers. Industrial clients can build a proof of concept inside the IQM ecosystem, then scale it as the hardware improves, without switching platforms or starting over.

EXL to acquire iMerit

ExlService Holdings, Inc., a global data and AI company, has announced a definitive agreement to acquire iMerit, specialists in AI model training, evaluation and reinforcement learning. 

The move strengthens EXL’s ability to help enterprises achieve measurable outcomes from AI, builds partnerships with foundation model builders and expands EXL’s reach into high-growth AI tech sectors.

This also positions EXL to help enterprises build fit-for-purpose small language models tailored to their data and workflows.

iMerit enhances EXL’s platform and human intelligence capabilities through its Ango platform and Scholars network. Ango powers sophisticated data interactions with GenAI models, enabling chain-of-thought reasoning, red teaming and multimodal evaluations. Scholars expands EXL’s domain expertise through iMerit’s global network of specialists, including physicians, scientists, engineers, linguists and other subject matter experts who support human intelligence-driven feedback workflows for reinforcement learning.

EXL will integrate Ango with its agentic platforms — including EXLerate.ai, EXLdata.ai, and EXLdecision.ai — to combine expert human judgment, model evaluation and enterprise-scale execution. Together, these capabilities create an end-to-end AI platform that aims to helpenterprises accelerate the transition from pilot to production-scale AI. 

This acquisition also expands EXL into high-growth AI sectors, including high tech, mobility, autonomous systems and physical AI. iMerit’s expertise across text, image, video, voice and LiDAR data creates a strong foundation for AI solutions powering robotics, autonomous vehicles and intelligent real-world environments.

The acquisition, valued at up to US$310 million in upfront and future consideration, is expected to close in the third quarter of 2026, subject to customary closing conditions.

Genesys acquires Pinkfish

Genesys, a company specialising in AI-powered experience orchestration, has acquired Pinkfish, an agentic orchestration workflow company.

This acquisition will expand Genesys Cloud AI with MCP-based tool integration and workflow automation capabilities, helping organisations connect customer intent to governed actions across enterprise systems and accelerate the adoption of trusted autonomous experiences that drive business outcomes.

With more than 500 integrations supporting 25,000 MCP tools spanning CRM, ERP, IT, HR, order management, billing and other business applications, Pinkfish brings one of the customer experience (CX) industry’s most extensive MCP ecosystems to Genesys Cloud.

These capabilities will help organisations overcome some of the biggest barriers to agentic AI adoption: fragmented systems, disconnected workflows and operational complexity that often prevent them from achieving more autonomous and outcome-driven customer experiences.

The acquisition will further the abilities of Genesys Cloud Agentic Virtual Agent to autonomously orchestrate and complete customer work within trusted business guardrails. As a result, Agentic Virtual Agent will be able to resolve more complex customer needs end-to-end, improving self-service experiences while reducing customer effort and operational handoffs.

Genesys Cloud AI with the natural language-driven workflow automation of Pinkfish will enable organisations to build and deploy sophisticated AI-powered CX workflows, making agentic orchestration more accessible to business users and accelerating time to value.

Booz Allen to acquire Ultra I&C Mission Solutions business

Booz Allen Hamilton has entered into a definitive agreement with the Cobham Ultra Group, an Advent portfolio company, to acquire its Ultra I&C Mission Solutions business (Ultra Mission Solutions) for US$720 million.

Ultra Mission Solutions is a defense technology business specialising in mission‑critical software, encryption, and edge‑compute products.

Booz Allen’s portfolio of AI-driven battle management, resilient communications, and edge infrastructure solutions - including the Modular Detachment Kit (MDK), EdgeXtend and Sit(x) - will expand with Ultra Solutions’ mission-ready tech stack.

Ultra Mission Solutions’ core offerings, including Apex, ADSI, ACTS, Rain, and Knox, unify command and control (C2), edge compute, secure data movement, and encryption into a modular architecture capable of operating in contested or disconnected environments.

These solutions will now integrate into a unified platform available to national security clients worldwide.

The acquisition will enable increased product integration and commercially available solutions accessible through outcomes-based procurement, Foreign Military Sales (FMS), and other go-to-market channels.

Thales to acquire the Gorgé family’s stake in Exail,

Thales has signed a binding agreement with the Gorgé family concert for the acquisition of their combined 35.51% stake in Exail Technologies, with a view to acquiring 100% of Exail.

The transaction is based on a price of €134.00 per Exail’ share, implying an enterprise value for Exail of €3.9bn.

With €479m revenue in 2025, double-digit growth expected for 2026 and over 2,200 employees, Exail is a high‑tech dual industrial group specialising in technologies in robotics, navigation, aerospace and photonics for both defence and civilian customers in more than 80 countries.

Through its Navigation and maritime robotics segment, Exail specialises in inertial navigation units for naval, land and space applications. It has also developed a complete range of underwater drones, maritime surface drones or remotely operated maritime drones, which it designs, builds and equips in different configurations depending on the target use case. 

Exail's Advanced Technologies segment develops and markets components (optics, photonics, quantum technologies) and other advanced equipment (simulators, on‑board communication systems, etc.), which it sells to third parties and integrates in its navigation and maritime robotics products.

Through the intended acquisition of 100% of Paris-headquartered Exail, Thales will increase its scale in the underwater warfare market, benefiting from Exail’ expertise in unmanned mine countermeasures and maritime drone systems.

The combination of Thales’ and Exail’s portfolios will allow Thales to offer integrated solutions to its customers, from components to autonomous systems. The transaction is expected to accelerate the development of their unmanned mine countermeasures solutions.

By combining their capabilities in R&D, Thales and Exail aim to be well positioned to further contribute to innovation in the field, notably in the high-demand unmanned anti-submarine warfare segment, leveraging artificial intelligence and autonomy across the combined portfolio.

Exail’ expertise in inertial navigation systems has strong complementary with Thales’ products (Ring-Laser Gyroscope for Thales, Fiber-Optic Gyroscope for Exail), allowing Thales to strengthen its value proposition in effectors and aerospace, as well as to accelerate their development in the field of quantum sensors.

The closing of the acquisition of the Gorgé family’s stake is expected by Q3 2027, upon completion of customary antitrust and regulatory approvals.

Following the closing of the acquisition of this stake, Thales will file a mandatory tender offer for 100% of Exail’ shares and ODIRNANE bonds with the AMF, with closing expected at the beginning of 2028 at the latest.

Open Point and Converlens unite

Open Point, an Australian community and stakeholder engagement platform, has announced the acquisition of Converlens, an AI-powered data and analytics platform specialising in public consultation workflows.

The acquisition brings Converlens’ analytics technology into the Open Point family, complementing its existing community engagement and stakeholder relationship management products. Together, the combined offering aims to enable organisations to capture, manage and analyse engagement data across the full project lifecycle.

Open Point and Converlens have a longstanding partnership, through which the two platforms have been integrated to enable existing customers to connect engagement data with advanced analytics. 

Converlens’ technology helps organisations analyse large volumes of qualitative feedback, including consultation responses, submissions, transcripts and stakeholder communications. The platform has been designed specifically for public sector environments, with a focus on transparency, data security and practitioner usability.

EQT to acquire Orikan

EQT today announced that BPEA EQT Mid-Market Growth Partnership (the “MMG Fund” or “EQT”), has agreed to acquire Orikan, a provider of integrated parking, enforcement, and compliance technology solutions.

Headquartered in Melbourne, Orikan provides integrated parking operations and enforcement and infringement management services, supported by software, hardware, payments and data capabilities designed and operated by the company.

With nearly 400 employees, Orikan serves hundreds of government and private sector customers – including universities, airports, hospitals and stadiums – across Australia, New Zealand, and North America.

EQT will partner with Orikan’s management team to support the next phase of growth through continued investment in service delivery, product development, customer operations, and data and AI capabilities.

Drawing on its global platform experience and sector expertise in technology-enabled services, EQT will support Orikan as it identifies opportunities to expand into adjacent customer segments and international markets.