Dealflow this year is running three times hotter than year-ago.
By CPA Trendlines Research
The CPA Trendlines PE-CPA Deal Tracker™ logged 31 transactions in January 2026 and 21 in February — a combined 52 deals in the first two months of the year. The comparable figure for January–February 2025 was 16. Year over year, the pace has more than tripled.
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January’s 31-deal total is the highest single-month figure in the tracker’s history, spanning more than 340 transactions dating back to 2016. The prior five Januarys combined — 2021 through 2025 — produced 24 transactions. January 2026 exceeded that five-year total on its own.
Deal volume stood at 3 transactions in 2019, the year most observers mark as the beginning of institutional capital’s entry into accounting. It reached 10 in 2021, 19 in 2022, 39 in 2023, 91 in 2024, and 127 in 2025. Through February 28, 2026, the tracker records 52 deals — already 41 percent of last year’s full-year total, with ten months remaining.
In 2025, the tracker averaged roughly 10.6 deals per month and recorded seven months at 10 or more. November 2025, with 20 transactions, had been the single-month record. January 2026 reset that record by more than 50 percent.
January: A Record That Reframes the Market
January’s 31 transactions were not driven by a single dominant event. They reflected broad platform participation.
Ascend, backed by Alpine Investors, opened January with the addition of Gollob Morgan Peddy in Tyler, Texas, and followed with Gettleson Witzer in California and Alexander Almand & Bangs in Georgia. Aprio, backed by Charlesbank Capital Partners, absorbed Delap in Oregon, Hoffman Stewart & Schmidt in Oregon, and the TaxOps SALT team in Colorado. CohnReznick, backed by Apax Partners, expanded into Minnesota with Smith Schafer.
New platform activity ran alongside the add-on volume. Madison Dearborn Partners backed the formation of a new CPA-insurance-advisory platform anchored by Nichols Cauley of Georgia, with former Baker Tilly US CEO Alan Whitman at the helm. Ryan LLC, already the tracker’s second-largest platform by deal count, announced a recapitalization valuing the firm at $7 billion, with Neuberger Berman committing up to $1.2 billion as a minority investor alongside existing sponsors Onex Partners and Ares Private Equity.
January was not a month of one story. It was a month of parallel systems operating at full capacity.
February: Precision, Not Pause
Where January featured platform formations and high-visibility recapitalizations, February favored infill and capability expansion. UHY added CMJ LLP in Albany and Larson Tax Partners in St. Louis. Cherry Bekaert expanded in California with Richardson Kontogouris Emerson. Doeren Mayhew executed a dual acquisition in Alabama, pairing CPA firm Dent Moses with IT services provider Impact Technology Group — a pairing that signals the sector’s expanding definition of what a “accounting acquisition” is.
Sorren added Connected Accounting in Los Angeles. Citrin Cooperman added Browne Consulting Group in Massachusetts. Platform Accounting Group entered Connecticut with Green Coast Advisors. Pinion announced merger intent with TCA, deepening its agricultural and risk management concentration.
February’s composition reinforces a theme that has been building since late 2025: platforms are no longer just buying firms. They are assembling service architectures.
Who Is Driving the Volume
The tracker’s sponsor rankings reflect the scale of institutional commitment. Thrive Capital, backing Crete Professionals Alliance, leads all sponsors with 30 associated transactions. Ares Management and Onex, backing Ryan LLC, follow with 27. DFW Capital, backing Sorren, accounts for 16.
By platform, Crete Professionals Alliance leads with 30 deals. Ryan follows with 27. Sorren records 17, Ascend 15, and Doeren Mayhew 13. The top five platforms together account for roughly 30 percent of all transactions in the tracker.
No single sponsor or platform controls even 10 percent of the total market. The competitive field remains broadly distributed across more than 50 active sponsors since 2024.
The Significance of the New Floor
The question the surge data raises is not whether volume will continue. The structural conditions — recurring revenue, consolidation-friendly partnership economics, aging partner demographics, and deep sponsor pools — have not changed. The question is what sustained high-volume activity means for the firms that have not yet transacted.
At 52 deals in two months, the market is no longer in a phase where institutional capital is testing accounting as an asset class. It is in a phase where capital deployment has become routine, integration models are proven, and acquisition pipelines are competitive.
For mid-sized firms in the $20-million to $75-million revenue band — which represents roughly 35 percent of revenue-disclosed deals in the tracker — the environment has shifted. The question is no longer whether private equity is interested. It is about which terms and structures are available and how much longer the current window will stay open.