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The rise of FinOps already fueled multiple acquisitions, including IBM’s plan to acquire Apptio for a whopping $4.6 billion, but I bet there’s more to come. And there’s another trend I’m sure we’re not done hearing about: parametric insurance. — Anna

The ongoing rise of FinOps

When cloud optimization startup ProsperOps raised a $72 million funding round last February, my colleague Kyle Wiggers argued that consolidation in this space wasn’t necessarily over.

Sure, several cloud optimization companies had been nabbed by incumbents over the years, from Cloudyn’s acquisition by Microsoft in 2017 to CloudHealth Technologies’ purchase by VMware in 2018. But more could still follow, Kyle argued, citing Intel’s 2022 $650 million purchase of Granulate as evidence.

He was right: In a busy week for M&A news, IBM announced its intent to buy Apptio from its current private equity owner for $4.6 billion in cash. In 2019, Apptio itself had acquired Cloudability, a cloud spending management vendor. Reporting on IBM’s announcement, Ingrid Lunden noted that Apptio’s activities fall into a broader category.