Person
1 episodes · 10 quoted claims
Benjamin Houssard says seven of the ten largest deals since the start of the year are related to AI, directly or indirectly.
“So if we just look at the top ten deals of, uh, the since, uh, the start of the year, and actually you see that, uh, seven out of ten are in some ways, uh, let's say, related, uh, to, uh, AI”
Benjamin Houssard says utility consolidation deals are partly driven by data centers' need for power.
“Uh. The rationale of these deals include the fact that data centers need power.”
Benjamin Houssard says OpenAI's acquisitions typically target small teams of about ten people that have solved a specific problem, rather than buying revenue.
“When OpenAI, I would say, does an acquisition, uh, this is not to buy revenues, uh, this is typically to buy, uh, uh, ten person teams that have already solved a very specific, uh, problem”
Benjamin Houssard says Schneider Electric made many AI-related acquisitions to build capabilities in manufacturing and supply chain.
“What Schneider Electric did over the last years is, uh, to do a large number of, uh, uh, AI related acquisitions to build capabilities around, uh, AI in manufacturing, AI in supply chain”
Benjamin Houssard describes Amazon hiring the founding team of Adept AI and signing a license agreement with the startup within days, as an example of the acquihire model.
“They hire the founding team of Adapt AI on, uh, the Monday, on the Tuesday, uh, they sign a a licenses agreement back, uh, to, uh, the startup.”
Benjamin Houssard cites Synopsys' acquisition of a company he names as 'NCs' as an example of an expensive tech-adjacent AI deal.
“We saw that, uh, Synopsys, uh, uh, um, spent, uh, 35 million to buy, uh, to acquire NCs”
Benjamin Houssard cites Capgemini's acquisition of a company he names as Cognite as a European example of an IT services firm moving into AI.
“We had some deals as well in Europe, like, uh, uh, Capgemini, uh, acquiring, uh, Cognite”
Benjamin Houssard says that in some cases, rewiring companies with AI during integration doubled the synergies achieved.
“We have seen some situation where we could double the amount of synergy by re what we call rewiring the companies during the integration process.”
Benjamin Houssard says traditional diligence of three to four weeks made it hard to review thousands of documents, so teams only sampled the data room.
“In a diligence of three, four weeks, it was difficult to look at thousands of, uh, documents.”
Benjamin Houssard says a McKinsey survey found awareness of AI in upstream M&A rose to about 88 from 51 the previous year, though adoption is lower.
“You see the level of awareness for upstream now up to eighty eight, uh, fifty one point from last year, even if the level of adoption is, uh, lower.”