Rob Robinson published the quarterly list of eDiscovery investor funding events on his excellent ComplexDiscovery blog, which shows that eDiscovery investor funding events remain low in 2022.

As Rob reports on his quarterly post here, there have been at least 5 publicly noted M&A+I events in the eDiscovery ecosystem during Q3 2022. And one of those was actually an agreement to acquire in June (Q2). That’s significantly lower than the 13 events that were recorded in Q3 2021.

Not only that, but the Q3 2022 investment pulse rate (5) appears to be the second lowest quarterly investment pulse rate since 2015. The only two lower are Q2 2020 with four total events (when the pandemic’s immediate influence essentially paused investment activity for two months) and last quarter (which dropped from 5 to 4 when that agreement to acquire mentioned above was pushed into this quarter). So, the last two quarters have been two of the lowest event quarters since 2015.

We are still seeing some significant events to be sure, including this acquisition and this acquisition. But the number of events is down considerably.

How much? Last year was a record for M&A+I events, with 54. This year, we only have 17 through the first three quarters of the year. Even if we were to have ten events in the fourth quarter (a strong quarter), that would only get us to half as many as last year.

Clearly, investor funding events are down in 2022 for eDiscovery companies. Is this a trend or a hiccup? We’ll see.

BTW, as always, Rob has a listing at the bottom of the post of publicly noted M&A+I events he has tracked since all the way back in 2001!

So, what do you think?  Are you surprised that eDiscovery investor funding events are down in 2022? How long do you expect it to stay that way? Please share any comments you might have or if you’d like to know more about a particular topic.

Disclaimer: The views represented herein are exclusively the views of the author, and do not necessarily represent the views held by my employer, my partners or my clients. eDiscovery Today is made available solely for educational purposes to provide general information about general eDiscovery principles and not to provide specific legal advice applicable to any particular circumstance. eDiscovery Today should not be used as a substitute for competent legal advice from a lawyer you have retained and who has agreed to represent you.