DMEXCO 2026: Big ideas. Grown-up economics.

Palo Alto - September 30, 2026 - Back at DMEXCO in Cologne for the first time since before COVID, I found a more regional show and a different approach to building businesses. My take: Europe's martech and adtech M&A opportunity now lies in turning technical talent, customer relationships and capital discipline into businesses that global strategic buyers want to own.

TWO SHOWS. ONE ROOF.
DMEXCO felt like two overlapping events: a German-speaking commercial hub in Halls 6 and 8 and a meeting point for European and Asian technology companies, with Southeast Asian adtech businesses particularly visible in Hall 7. Compared with my previous visits, the center of gravity felt more firmly rooted in Germany, Austria and Switzerland. For companies entering Europe, the implication is straightforward: local relationships never mattered more, language and distribution remain a meaningful competitive asset. Acquiring that access is likely more effective than building it country by country.

AI HAS ARRIVED. THE BUYER STILL WANTS A BUSINESS CASE.
At U.S. conferences, conversations frequently jump to how quickly AI will reshape teams and displace existing software. In Cologne, my discussions placed more weight on implementation, European workforce protections and established buying workflows, including continued reliance on traditional insertion orders. The question is whether those relationships and local buying habits create lasting protection or simply slow the pace of disruption AI featured prominently, but the conversation leaned toward improving existing businesses, with less emphasis on the risk of replacing them. The M&A implication: buyers need to distinguish between businesses using AI to defend their position and those whose position AI could erase.

THE CAP TABLE IS PART OF THE EXIT STRATEGY.
Several founders I met were deliberate about raising venture capital. They understood that a large financing creates a larger exit hurdle, particularly when scaling across fragmented markets. That discipline can preserve transaction flexibility. A business with controlled burn, credible growth and manageable investor expectations may have more viable exit paths than one whose financing assumes an exceptional outcome. Raising less can leave founders with more ways to win. A solid strategic exit can work when the cap table does not require a blockbuster outcome Although in EMEA, M&A buyers should still expect to pay for quality; capital efficiency does not make quality cheap. It can make a deal easier to get done.

EUROPE'S ENGINEERING BENCH DESERVES A CLOSER LOOK.
Meetings with Ukrainian outsourced development companies were a striking reminder of the region's resilience and technical depth. Nearshoring remains an important part of the operating model for many continental European tech companies, and the engineering cost differential with the U.S. was a recurring theme. For strategic buyers, an acquisition can deliver product capability and an established development team with meaningful working-hour overlap for European operations. The underwriting needs to extend beyond salary savings to retention, IP ownership, operating continuity and the ability to scale in the face of AI.

THE STARTUP ENERGY WAS REAL. THE AMBITION FROM INCUMBENTS WAS MORE SELECTIVE.
The startup scene was lively, with an especially visible contingent of female founders. Yet my conversations conveyed less conviction about competing at the scale of the largest U.S. and APAC AI platforms. The more compelling opportunities were specific: solve a valuable customer problem, establish distribution and build defensible economics. Those businesses can become attractive acquisition targets well before reaching global platform scale. Of the more than 15 startups I met, these five stood out for their products, teams and commercial potential.

THE WCP DMEXCO TAKE: Europe offers global buyers a compelling mix of technology, customer access and capital discipline. The opportunity is to acquire capabilities that would take years to build, at a price the operating business can support. The opportunity is for global buyers to purchase capabilities that are difficult to organically replicate in EMEA, with economics that work on day one.