The corporate owners that bought into warehouse automation are now selling, often at a discount. Meanwhile, a new generation of buyers is underwriting production data and software rather than the machines alone.

A sector-wide correction has made the recent surge in dealmaking possible. After a boom in 2021-2022, order intake slowed as customers digested earlier automation investments, higher interest rates delayed capital spending decisions, and valuations compressed sharply, said Nick Banich, chief revenue officer at global supply chain consultancy Miebach Consulting.

Assets bought at peak multiples never delivered the growth investors had underwritten, pressuring both public-company and private equity portfolios.

That led to a fair amount of recapitalization, distress and bankruptcy activity over the past two to three years, noted Scott Stevens, founder of investment firm Grays Peak Capital.

“The tough years helped create the conditions for more disciplined, value-oriented capital to re-enter the space,” Banich added.

Mobile robot pioneer Fetch Robotics perhaps best illustrates the current dealmaking environment. Zebra Technologies acquired Fetch for USD 291m in July 2021, then told investors last December it would wind down or sell the business, citing the cost of running it and writing down roughly USD 60m. Robotics software company Skild AI emerged as the buyer in April, paying an undisclosed price.

“The value of the transaction was not simply the hardware, but also Fetch’s data and [fleet] orchestration capabilities,” said Dustin Pederson, CFO of warehouse robotics company Locus Robotics. “There remains a shortage of real-world production data within the robotics sector.”

The reset also pulled entry valuations back to levels sponsors could underwrite. American Industrial Partners closed its purchase of Honeywell’s Warehouse and Workflow Solutions unit, comprising Intelligrated and Transnorm, on 27 July and is combining it with portfolio company Trew.

Demand is turning at the same time. Pederson said more new warehouse builds are expected in 2026 than in 2025, the first increase in more than three years. Meanwhile, falling system costs have expanded the market well beyond the Amazon and Walmart projects that once defined it, Stevens said. Buyers can now automate portions of a facility for USD 500,000 to USD 5m rather than USD 50m to USD 100m.

All those factors are combining to create an uptick in dealmaking. Warehouse automation M&A in North America reached a record-setting USD 5.5bn across 15 transactions in 1H26, the highest number of deals in four years, according to Mergermarket data.

Source: Mergermarket, data correct as at 29-Jul-26

Where the multiples split

Another deal that illustrates the correction came last November, when Duravant paid USD 232.1m for Matthews International’s warehouse automation business. That unit generated sales of USD 72m in fiscal 2025, implying a roughly 3.2x revenue multiple for a warehouse execution and control software business.

By contrast, warehouse management software companies changed hands at 20x to 30x revenue during the market peak, Stevens noted.

Robotics deals frequently rely on revenue-based valuation metrics because many companies generate insufficient earnings to support an EBITDA multiple, he added.

Hardware alone is table stakes and commands lower relative valuations, Banich said. Orchestration platforms and robotics-as-a-service models draw clear premiums because they improve system utilization and generate higher-quality recurring revenue.

Hardware-centric business models fell out of favor because scaling them required substantial capital, said Peter Finn, managing director and head of the industrial technology practice at Brown Gibbons Lang. Those with strong software attach rates and a strategy for monetizing the installed base have been re-rated.

Buyers now reward proven deployments, attractive unit economics and low integration risk rather than technology alone, said Finn.

The distinction matters because proving the technology works in a controlled pilot is relatively straightforward, Banich said. Achieving reliability across shifts, SKU mixes and peak operating periods is considerably harder.

A thinner field than expected

Strategics remain the most active buyers, Finn said, supported by robust valuations and growing willingness to buy technologies they previously sought to develop internally.

One example is Symbotic’s acquisition of autonomous forklift developer Fox Robotics in February, which extended its orchestration software to the loading dock.

Sponsors are pursuing platform-building strategies instead. Finn said private equity favors systems integrators and service providers, and is adding recurring software and aftermarket revenue to project-oriented platforms.

The clearest example of that, according to Banich, is the combination of Intelligrated, Transnorm, and Trew under American Industrial Partners.

Holding periods in the sector now run several years, potentially leading to more exits and secondary sales over the next 18 to 24 months, Banich said.

Processes are not clearing as cleanly as the interest suggests. While larger assets tend to attract banker-led processes, lower mid-market companies often receive less attention, said Stevens.

“A lot of sales processes [have attracted] far fewer bidders than people expected,” Stevens said, attributing that partly to the complexity and specificity of the vertical.

Sellers are also selective. Owners often prefer buyers with long-term operating credentials rather than traditional financial sponsors. “They’re looking for a more friendly owner-operator,” said Stevens.

Some assembly still required

The next phase is moving down market. The industry focused on large projects over the past five to eight years, Stevens said, and buyers have yet to adapt their strategies to the mid-market opportunity represented by lower profile companies generating USD 300m to USD 1bn in revenue.

Finn said warehouse automation remains significantly underpenetrated outside the most sophisticated operators. “We are still very much in the early innings,” he said.

Humanoid robotics, meanwhile, continue to attract investor attention, even though it is an extremely small part of the market today. Agility Robotics, whose flagship humanoid, Digit, undertakes tote loading in warehouses, agreed to list in June through a USD 2.5bn blank-check merger, a fraction of the valuation of private humanoid developers.

Banich expects near-term dealmaking to stay in more mature autonomous mobile robot, automated storage and retrieval, sortation and orchestration technologies that already deliver measurable returns.

The winners, Banich said, will be the companies, and the investors behind them, “that solve for reliable, measurable performance in real operating environments rather than the most elegant technology demonstration.”