Where Tech M&A Gets Done in 2026: A Bay Area Bench Sponsors Use Less

A general counsel at a software company weighing tech M&A law firms should start with where the work is actually staffed. Sartori & Partners data show that 18.1% of technology and software deals in the 12 months to October 2026 were handled with lawyers in San Francisco, against 11.2% of financial sponsor deals. Palo Alto and Silicon Valley appear in the technology list as rows of their own, at 10.5% and 9.7% of the sector's deals. Behind that geography sits a different bench: corporate and M&A lawyers worked on 47.8% of technology deals, against 23.3% of all deals on record. For a company planning an acquisition or a sale, the two facts decide which offices to test and which partners to meet.

Put the two city lists next to each other and one row breaks the pattern. Seven cities sit on both lists, and in six of them a larger share of sponsor deals than of technology deals was handled with local lawyers. San Francisco is the exception: 18.1% of technology deals against 11.2% of sponsor deals, a gap of 6.9 points, or 1.6 times the sponsor share. London runs hardest the other way, at 29.5% of sponsor deals against 15.0% of technology deals, and Chicago follows the same direction at 16.7% against 9.1%. New York heads both lists, at 38.7% for technology and 43.2% for sponsors, so it is the common base rather than a point of difference.

Each figure is the share of a sector's deals, among those with a known lawyer location, that had lawyers working on them from the city. A deal staffed from New York and San Francisco counts in both rows, so the shares add to more than the whole and are never summed; they show where the work is done, not where a firm's lawyers are counted. The figures also cover every technology deal, not only acquisitions, though corporate and M&A lawyers sit on 47.8% of them. The practical reading for a general counsel: a firm that pitches technology M&A from New York and London alone is offering a footprint closer to the sponsor pattern than to the sector's. Ask which San Francisco or Bay Area partners would be on the signing calls.

The technology list carries three Bay Area entries. San Francisco sits third at 18.1%, behind New York at 38.7% and Washington, DC at 19.6%. Palo Alto follows at 10.5%, then Boston at 10.1% and Silicon Valley at 9.7%. Palo Alto and Silicon Valley are recorded as separate locations, yet they describe overlapping offices along the same corridor, and a deal staffed from both counts in each, so the two are never folded into one Bay Area total. Seattle closes the list at 4.6%.

The Washington figure needs context. The city list covers every kind of technology matter, and disputes and investigations were 16.9% of the sector's deals by type, so regulatory and contentious work weighs on it as much as transactions do. In the Sartori & Partners deal record the list is also not a count of lawyers, and it cannot say which firms staff from Palo Alto rather than San Francisco. Use it to frame the question instead: on the firm's last comparable acquisition, which office ran the corporate work, which office ran diligence, and was the partner who pitched you on the deal from start to close?

Corporate and M&A lawyers appeared on 47.8% of technology and software deals over 12 months, 2.1 times their 23.3% share of all deals. Among financial sponsor deals the figure is 9.1%: sponsor work runs mainly through private equity lawyers, who appear on 32.8% of it. Read from the practice's side, technology is the largest client sector of corporate and M&A work, at 14.0% of the practice's 11,230 deals, or 1,569 matters, against 6.8% of the whole deal record. Pharma and biotech, next on the practice's list, accounted for 6.8%.

Practice shares inside a sector overlap: capital markets lawyers were on 24.0% of technology deals and intellectual property lawyers on 11.3%, often on the same matters. Where a value was disclosed, the median technology deal was $250 million, against $315 million for corporate and M&A deals across all sectors and $700 million for sponsor deals. A technology company is the bench's most frequent client sector and brings smaller tickets than a sponsor does. That gives a general counsel standing to ask for the team that runs this work every week, and a reason to ask how the firm staffs a deal below its own median.

The first list below covers every technology and software deal, acquisitions, financings, offerings and disputes alike; there is no firm list for technology M&A on its own. Wilson Sonsini Goodrich & Rosati heads it, with Latham & Watkins and Davis Polk & Wardwell in the same 151-250 band of deals advised. Checked name by name against the corporate and M&A top 10, seven firms appear on both: Wilson Sonsini Goodrich & Rosati ranks 3rd there, Latham & Watkins 1st, Kirkland & Ellis 2nd, Goodwin Procter 4th, DLA Piper 5th, Cooley 7th and Fenwick & West 10th. The other three technology names, Davis Polk & Wardwell, Kilpatrick Townsend & Stockton and Gunderson Dettmer Stough Villeneuve Franklin & Hachigian, are not in the practice's top 10.

Four of the technology ten, Wilson Sonsini Goodrich & Rosati, Fenwick & West, Cooley and Gunderson Dettmer Stough Villeneuve Franklin & Hachigian, built their practices around emerging companies, and venture and growth financings were 15.3% of the sector's deals. Against the financial sponsor top 10 the overlap is narrower. Only three technology names appear there: Latham & Watkins at 2nd, Kirkland & Ellis at 1st and Goodwin Procter at 6th; none of the four emerging-company firms is on that list.

So a shortlist taken from the sponsor side would miss seven of the ten firms most active on technology deals, and one taken from the sector list alone may include firms whose standing rests on financings and disputes rather than acquisitions. The corporate and M&A list, headed by Latham & Watkins and Kirkland & Ellis, adds three firms that are not in the technology top 10: CMS, White & Case and Gibson, Dunn & Crutcher. Test every name on the M&A side: ask for the technology acquisitions and sales its partners ran in the past 12 months, the office that led each one, and the deal sizes.

Between the settled 12-month window ending September 2025 and the one ending September 2026, the technology and software deal count held flat (+4.6%), from 3,136 to 3,279. Over the same windows the corporate and M&A deal count rose 9.5%, from 10,198 to 11,170, and the whole deal record rose 10.6%. Financial sponsor deals rose 8.9% on the same basis.

No trend is published for technology M&A on its own, so these lines cannot show whether technology acquisitions grew. What they do show is load on the same bench: corporate and M&A teams carried more work across all sectors, while total technology demand held steady. Sartori & Partners figures put the practice's rise at 9.5%, close to the market's. For a technology company, the scarce resource is the M&A partner's calendar, not the sector's attention. Book the corporate team before the letter of intent, and ask what else the lead partner is carrying in the quarter you plan to sign.

Staff the deal where the sector's work is done. 18.1% of technology deals were handled with lawyers in San Francisco, against 11.2% of sponsor deals: ask every firm which Bay Area partners would run your transaction, and treat Palo Alto and Silicon Valley as one corridor described twice, not two benches. Do not judge a firm by its sponsor record. Corporate and M&A lawyers are on 47.8% of technology deals and on 9.1% of sponsor deals, so a strong private equity group is a different team from the one you need. Build the shortlist from both firm lists above: the seven names they share are the obvious start, and the sector-only names earn a meeting when they can show acquisitions, not only financings. Plan for a busy bench: the corporate and M&A deal count rose 9.5% while technology work held flat, so partner time is the constraint. Sartori & Partners figures come from public law-firm announcements, firm websites and professional profiles, checked monthly.