Martech investments decline in Q3: Where did the funding go?

Q3 2023 witnessed a significant decrease in new product announcements, with only 65 new offerings introduced during the quarter, according to CabinetM’s Q3 2023 MarTech Innovation Report.

Investment shifts. Martech investment across 19 categories, which stood at $13.2 billion in Q1 2023, saw a remarkable decrease, plummeting to $3.1 billion in Q2 2023. (However, it is essential to note that these numbers were affected by a single massive investment of $10 billion in ChatGPT in Q1 and $1.3 billion in Inflection AI in Q2.) 

In Q3, investments dropped further to $1.9 billion. Most of this funding, amounting to $713 million (38%), was channeled into analytics companies, indicating a focus on business intelligence.

Emerging AI tools. Over the last three quarters, CabinetM has closely monitored generative AI products and other AI-related categories. In Q3, 15 new AI tools were announced, underscoring the continued expansion of artificial intelligence within the martech sector.

M&A activity. Q3 2023 saw a downturn in M&A activity with only 31 acquisitions, compared to 64 in Q3 2022 and 52 in Q3 2021.

However, the number of acquisitions has stayed roughly the same this year, from 26 in Q2 2023 to 31 this quarter (only a slight 19% increase). We will continue to watch this downturn over the coming quarters closely.

The CabinetM Q3 2023 MarTech Innovation Report is not gated, and downloading it will not result in a barrage of emails and phone calls. 

CabinetM MarTech Innovation Reports are a quarterly summary of new technology introductions, feature updates and acquisitions. They can be accessed without a gate on LibraryM.