Steve Monnington, CEO of Mayfield Merger Strategies summarises this month’s transactions and talks to the co-founder of SCALE Expo, supporting founders and scaleups.
There were 6 transactions this month covering USA, China, India and Australia. A few highlights below.
Terrapinn kicks off 2026 with 2 more acquisitions
Terrapinn has announced a long-term partnership with Australia’s Smart Energy Council (SEC) for their Smart Energy Conference & Exhibition, Australia’s longest running event for the solar, storage and renewable energy sectors and it joins Terrapinn’s ever increasing portfolio of Solar and Storage events.
Their second deal is the acquisition of FMS: the Future of Memory and Storage an annual event in Santa Clara, California dedicated to memory and storage technologies. The event, acquired from Conference Concepts Inc was launched in 2006 as Flash Memory Summit.
Has M&A in China restarted?
The one notable exception to the increasing number of exhibition deals across the world has been China. There have been only 5 transactions announced in the last 4 years compared to 14 (combined) in 2018 and 2019. However 2026 has started positively – in January Globus Events announced the acquisition of Beijing Qiyang International Exhibition, organiser of food exhibitions across China and Comexposium has now announced the acquisition of 51% of HJT International Exhibition, a Chinese organiser running shows in manufacturing including Interfoam China, SurfacePME and the China International Brush Exhibition.
Comexposium has been very quiet on the M&A front in recent years and has made this acquisition through its Indonesian JV – Seven Asia – with the expectation of rolling out HJT’s shows into the Indonesian market.
The M&A ecosystem debate gathers pace.
Each month in this column I have focused on different aspects of the founder’s journey. Last month I talked about the reliance that the acquisitive organisers have on founders to fuel their growth. I posited that this might not be sustainable given the number of transactions that take founders out of the market – 67% of exhibition acquisitions in 2025 were from founders. This struck a chord with industry legend Douglas Emslie who was inspired to build on my analysis in an article for the US journal Tradeshow Executive which can be found here. https://tradeshowexecutive.com/whos-building-the-future-while-were-buying-the-past/.
A start-up that organises exhibitions for start-ups
This month I’m looking at a UK community for founders and the glue that holds it together – SCALE EXPO AND SUMMIT, which will take place at the Business Design Centre in April.
SCALE is the brainchild of Sam North and Will Fowler, who joined the Evening Standard with a brief to build an events division. North brought 15 years’ experience at Clarion Events, running exhibitions such as Destinations and InternetRetailing, while Fowler spent five years managing events at The Telegraph. Among the ideas they pitched to their bosses, one stood out: SME XPO, a broad event for small business owners.
While they ran several events at the Standard, SME XPO became the star. The backing of the Evening Standard, with its promotional reach in London, made it easier to secure high-profile sponsors and firmly establish the brand and after three editions, the opportunity arose to acquire the event and run it independently. North highlights the event’s horizontal nature as a strength, fostering a “collegiate vibe” among founders and they have refined the focus to the “scale-up” space—businesses growing headcount and revenue by 20% annually for three consecutive years—and rebranded it as SCALE EXPO AND SUMMIT.
The event’s content now centres on the pain points of these scale-ups: growth capital, market access, and talent, all framed around the founder’s personal journey, a theme I have explored in previous editions. Narrowing the focus has also allowed SCALE to become a resource hub for founders.
Credit for this re-imagining also goes to Andrew Morris, whose career spans Earls Court & Olympia, NEC, Brand Events, Upper Street Events, and the Business Design Centre. Morris joined SCALE as Chairman shortly after the buyout from the Evening Standard, inspired by a Mash Media story about the acquisition. Today, SCALE not only hosts the London show but also runs monthly founder meet-ups and is launching SCALE Manchester—a more conference-style event—this November.
Through these monthly meetups, North has witnessed firsthand the challenges that founders face, particularly the so-called “valley of death”: the period between raising seed capital, often from friends and family, and securing professional VC funding with their expectations around recurring revenue, overall sales, and customer traction and which in the UK can take up to a year. For many startups, navigating this period determines survival or failure.
As exhibition founders themselves, North and his team experience different pressures than SMEs in other sectors. Cashflow from events can reduce dependence on external funding, recruitment is also more targeted, thanks to sector loyalty, though scaling geographically brings cultural challenges uncommon in other industries. Yet when raising capital, the scrutiny is the same: defensibility, talent retention, and growth potential remain critical.
The events industry is becoming increasingly aware that the founder’s journey can be lonely. Firms such as Events Venture Group and Manta Media Capital have emerged to fund and support founders. SCALE spotted the same need within its own community and launched SCALE Ventures—a £300k fund led by Andrew Morris providing funding, mentoring, and office space to up to four selected businesses. North stresses that backing early-stage ventures is about the founder and sourcing them from the SCALE community reduces investment risk. Their first investment, PuffPizza, founded by Nico Cossu and producing Sardinian-style artisan pizzas, is already underway.
SCALE’s appeal lies in how it touches every aspect of founders’ lives as they scale. Being a founder-led business itself, the team can empathize directly with its community, creating a rare ecosystem where support, insight, and investment converge.
Transactions and partnerships announced since the last column.
| Buyer/Investor | Business | Sector | Country |
| Terrapinn | Smart Energy Conference & Exh’n | Energy | Australia |
| Terrapinn | Future of Memory and Storage | Tech | USA |
| Axel Springer | BisNow | Commercial Real Estate | USA |
| Jonathan Weiner | The Nest Campus | Energy | USA |
| Seven Asia (Comexposium) | HJT International | Tech & Manufacturing | China |
| Messe Frankfurt | BusinessLive Tradefairs | Sign | India |