These Private, VC-Backed Companies Are The Most-Active, Spendiest Startup Acquirers

We used to assume that when a startup purchased another startup, it was probably a small acquisition.

That鈥檚 no longer the case. As the ranks of ultra-heavily funded unicorns swell, they鈥檙e showing greater willingness to spend large sums to buy complementary startups.

These big outlays, sometimes in the hundreds of millions, come amid a busy period for startup-to-startup dealmaking. Over the past year, at least 423 U.S. venture- or seed-backed companies have sold to other private, VC-funded companies, .

Of those, only a couple dozen purchases had disclosed prices. Those that did, however, included some very sizable deals, valued altogether at more than $6.3 billion.

For a sense of where the money is going, below we curated a list of the 12 largest disclosed-price of the past year.

Biggest spenders

By far the largest purchase this past year came from , one of the busiest and most deep-pocketed acquirers in all of startupland. Last October, the South San Francisco-based payments technology provider agreed to buy fintech startup for $1.1 billion.

So far, 2025 is off to a brisk start as well. Just last week, spatial computing and AI unicorn acquired agentic AI company for $500 million in cash and stock. And in January, New York-based e-commerce technology unicorn paid $300 million for customer data platform .

As you might suspect, the unicorns spending the most on startup M&A are a well-capitalized bunch. Stripe has raised $9.4 billion in funding to date, while Infinite Reality has secured $3.4 billion.

Other serial acquirers that don鈥檛 habitually disclose purchase prices are also capable of writing really large checks. This includes , recipient of the largest funding round in venture history, which has made three acquisitions in the past two years, per SA国际传媒 data.

Most-active buyers

In addition to spending a lot of money, some startups also do a lot of deals.

For more mature unicorns, in particular, it鈥檚 not uncommon to see multiple acquisitions to date. Some of the busiest have 10 or more.

Using SA国际传媒 data, we put together a data dive into some of the most active serial acquirers, with an emphasis on those who have recently consummated purchases. Standouts include:

Databricks: Over the past five years, has . Of those deals, the largest was its $1.3 billion purchase in 2023 of .

Automattic: Online publishing platform has under its belt, of which four closed in the past two years. Of those, the biggest was its $125 million acquisition of chat app a year ago.

Stripe: Payments unicorn Stripe has bought over the past 13 years. However, it only disclosed a purchase price on two of those deals, Bridge and , which it bought for $200 million in 2020.

Infinite Reality: Six-year-old Infinite Reality has a taste for M&A. It鈥檚 made to date, including seven in the past year. Five of its acquisitions have disclosed purchase prices of $100 million or more.

GrubMarket: San Francisco-headquartered , a unicorn focused on the food supply chain, has also been a busy buyer. It鈥檚 carried out to date, including many regional produce distributors and several software companies. One of the more high-profile deals was last year鈥檚 purchase of , a meal kit startup that previously raised over $200 million in venture funding.

Scopely: Game publisher , which is itself owned by , is another active acquirer. Last month, it agreed to pay $3.5 billion for 鈥檚 game business. To date, Scopely has made at least 11 .

Epic Games: Carey, North Carolina-based hasn鈥檛 been a particularly active acquirer of late, but it has done a lot of buying over the years, with to date. The most recent deal was an April of , a seed-stage startup focused on AI technology for 3D content.

An expected evolution

These days, there are quite a few mature, high-valuation venture-backed companies that have chosen to stay private. Given their ample capital reserves and appetite for growth, it鈥檚 not surprising to see them showing a taste for M&A.

With public markets in correction territory, and so many leading tech stocks down sharply in recent weeks, we could even envision private companies taking a larger role in startup M&A going forward. Since unicorns rarely disclose how much they pay for an acquisition, however, it鈥檒l be unclear what caliber of exits they鈥檙e providing.

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