For a lot of European tech founders, an acquisition deal often comes with a trade-off: a financial advantage at the cost of operational freedom.
But an acquisition done right allows founders to successfully de-risk while keeping future upsides through earnouts. It’s often a safer alternative to VC funding, which dilutes ownership and increases risk without necessarily guaranteeing a bigger payout.
According to Sifted data, between May 2025 and May 2026, 753 startups were acquired across Europe, showing only a slight decrease from the 804 companies acquired in the same time period the year before.A growing number of VC-backed startups are raising capital to buy. So far this year, 17 startups have raised funding and plan to use at least part of the capital to pursue acquisitions — including Swedish AI legaltech unicorn Legora and UK-based proptech company Dwelly.European software company Visma is actively rewriting the traditional M&A playbook. Rather than absorbing its portfolio companies, Visma acquires promising early-stage companies and gives them a high degree of independence.
“We are not big believers in full integration. We want most of the decisions to be made very close to the customer and the market,” says Ari-Pekka Salovaara, chief growth officer at Visma.
