For deal sourcers, staying current on private company activity is critical to spotting active buyers, tracking market trends, and uncovering emerging investment opportunities ahead of competitors.
In March alone, we added more than 1,800 new private company transactions, bringing the total to over 19,000 searchable deals across sectors, industries, and transaction types in Dakota Marketplace.
Inside Dakota Marketplace, you’ll find the transactions tab that provides structured, filterable data on deal types, values, and dates, while our editorial team curates daily updates through the dakota transactions newsletter, helping you cut through the noise and focus on what matters most.
To ensure the most comprehensive coverage of private market activity, Dakota monitors over 10,000 websites including company websites, newswires, and numerous third-party news providers to capture and verify transaction data as it happens.
Below are the top 10 information technology transactions.
- Transaction Date: 3/20/2026
- Industry: Electronic Equipment & Instruments & Components
- Type: Buyout/Private Equity
- Transaction Value: $4.75B
Ecolab announced a definitive agreement to acquire CoolIT Systems from KKR for approximately $4.75 billion in cash, adding a pure-play data center liquid cooling leader with ~$550 million in projected next-12-month sales and end-to-end capabilities across coolant distribution units, cold plates, and direct-to-chip cooling technologies. The acquisition doubles Ecolab's Global High-Tech market opportunity from $5 billion to $10 billion and positions Ecolab as a comprehensive Cooling-as-a-Service provider combining CoolIT's thermal engineering with Ecolab's water, chemistry, and digital monitoring expertise across the world's major hyperscaler and colocation customers.
- Transaction Date: 3/26/2026
- Industry: Software
- Type: Credit
- Transaction Value: $2.58B
Aligned Data Centers closed a $2.58 billion revolving credit facility — secured by six high-performing U.S. development assets and backed by insurance, pension fund, and other institutional capital — to fuel continued expansion of its data center portfolio supporting hyperscale, neocloud, and enterprise AI and HPC workloads. The three-year facility, structured to finance later-stage development assets with investment-grade-consistent capital treatment for insurance investors, diversifies Aligned's funding sources while preserving equity as the company scales to meet growing customer demand.
- Transaction Date: 3/2/2026
- Industry: Communications Equipment
- Type: Growth Equity
- Transaction Value: $2B
NVIDIA announced a multiyear strategic partnership with Lumentum, including a $2 billion equity investment and a multibillion-dollar purchase commitment for advanced laser components, to accelerate development of next-generation optical interconnect technology critical for scaling AI data center infrastructure. The agreement supports Lumentum's buildout of a new U.S.-based fabrication facility to expand manufacturing capacity and deepen R&D collaboration, as optical interconnects become increasingly essential to the energy efficiency and resiliency of gigawatt-scale AI factories.
- Transaction Date: 3/23/2026
- Industry: IT Services
- Type: Acquisition/Merger
- Transaction Value: $1.6B
Jacobs completed its acquisition of the remaining stake in PA Consulting for approximately £1.2 billion ($1.6 billion) in upfront consideration (paid 80% cash, 20% Jacobs shares) plus £75 million in deferred consideration, implying a total enterprise value of approximately £3.05 billion for 100% of the business. The full buyout of PA Consulting — in which Jacobs first invested in March 2021 — creates a comprehensive end-to-end advisory and technology-enabled solutions platform combining PA's strategic innovation and transformation capabilities with Jacobs' infrastructure delivery, program management, and technical engineering expertise across government, advanced manufacturing, life sciences, and critical infrastructure clients globally.
- Transaction Date: 3/26/2026
- Industry: Electronic Equipment & Instruments & Components
- Type: Growth Equity
- Transaction Value: $1.5B
Advent International announced a commitment to invest up to $1 billion in next-generation defense technology, with an initial investment co-leading Shield AI's $1.5 billion Series G round at a $12.7 billion valuation — backing the AI-powered autonomous systems company focused on air operations and defense modernization. The commitment builds on Advent's longstanding defense investment strategy, having deployed more than $15 billion in the sector since 2020 across companies including Cobham and Ultra Electronics, with a focus on scaling differentiated technologies critical to national security.
- Transaction Date: 3/10/2026
- Industry: IT Services
- Type: Credit
- Transaction Value: $1.2B
AirTrunk secured a JP¥191.6 billion ($1.2 billion) green loan — the largest data center financing ever completed in Japan — to refinance existing facilities and fund expansion of its TOK1 hyperscale campus in East Tokyo, which is scalable to over 300MW with more than 100MW of additional IT load currently under construction. The facility, led by SMBC, MUFG, Crédit Agricole CIB, and Société Générale, builds on AirTrunk's broader Japan strategy across four campuses that will deliver approximately 530MW of combined capacity for cloud and AI workloads at full build-out.
- Transaction Date: 3/3/2026
- Industry: Electronic Equipment & Instruments & Components
- Type: Acquisition/Merger
- Transaction Value: $1.2B
Accenture announced a definitive agreement to acquire Ookla from Ziff Davis for undisclosed terms, gaining a global leader in network intelligence whose portfolio — including Speedtest, Downdetector, Ekahau, and RootMetrics — captures more than 250 million consumer-initiated tests per month across 1,000+ attributes. The acquisition positions Accenture to deliver end-to-end network intelligence and AI-driven connectivity optimization to communications service providers, hyperscalers, and enterprises as mission-critical 5G and Wi-Fi networks become increasingly central to digital transformation across banking, utilities, retail, and beyond.
- Transaction Date: 3/10/2026
- Industry: Software
- Type: Venture
- Transaction Value: $1.03B
AMI Labs (Advanced Machine Intelligence Labs), the Paris-headquartered AI startup co-founded by Turing Prize winner and former Meta chief AI scientist Yann LeCun, raised $1.03 billion at a $3.5 billion valuation in what is Europe's largest-ever seed round, co-led by Cathay Innovation, Greycroft, Hiro Capital, HV Capital, and Bezos Expeditions, with additional backing from NVIDIA, Samsung, Eric Schmidt, and Tim Berners-Lee. The less-than-six-month-old company is developing AI world models as an alternative to large language models, focusing on understanding physical reality through predictive modeling rather than the data-intensive generative approach used by OpenAI, Anthropic, and Google.
- Transaction Date: 3/23/2026
- Industry: IT Services
- Type: Credit
- Transaction Value: $1B
Core Scientific expanded its 364-day credit facility to $1 billion by closing an additional $500 million commitment from J.P. Morgan — joining an existing $500 million commitment from Morgan Stanley — to fund data center development including equipment purchases, pre-development costs, real property acquisition, and energy procurement. The financing bolsters Core Scientific's ability to accelerate infrastructure delivery and capitalize on strong demand for high-density colocation capacity.
- Transaction Date: 3/30/2026
- Industry: Software
- Type: Credit
- Transaction Value: $830M
Mistral raised $830 million in its first-ever debt financing — backed by a consortium of seven banks including BNP Paribas, Crédit Agricole CIB, HSBC, and MUFG — to fund 13,800 NVIDIA GB300 GPUs for a 44MW data center near Paris in Bruyères-le-Châtel, expected to become operational in Q2 2026. The raise advances Mistral's broader ambition to build 200MW of AI infrastructure capacity across Europe by end of 2027, positioning the company as a sovereign European alternative to U.S. hyperscalers for governments and enterprises seeking AI independence.
At Dakota, we understand how important it is to stay current on deal activity as it happens. That’s why our editorial team continuously monitors the news for real-time updates on platform investments, add-ons, divestitures, and more to deliver daily highlights straight to your inbox through our transactions newsletter.
Inside Dakota Marketplace, the transactions tab provides structured, filterable data with deal dates, types, sectors, and financials, allowing you to build a customized feed that aligns with your focus areas.
Whether you're evaluating a new investment opportunity or tracking trends within a target sector, Dakota Marketplace helps you cut through the noise and focus on what matters most.
For more information on these transactions and a deeper dive into their industries and sub-industries, book a demo of Dakota Marketplace.
