Pinned straw:
I have yet to look into the acquisition, but a quick look at the update provided is a good indicator of momentum
I don't mind these kinds of bolt-ons at all.
First, and most importantly, its a logical extension of the existing product line and complements it well.
From a financial standpoint, this is an 11x ACV company, cap raising and acquiring another business at the same valuation, but one that’s growing significantly faster.
Catapult can leverage its strengths in sales, marketing, and distribution to cross sell the Impect product and potentially accelerate its growth even further. Impect may also enhance the value proposition of CAT’s existing offerings in the soccer vertical - particularly its video solutions.
I agree with @Strawman's analysis of this deal.
Prior to the deal, Catapult Scout had a relatively new product, focused on US College Football. IMPECT materially advances $CAT's capability in scouting.
I got my BA (ChatGPT) to do a market analysis of where IMPECT sits in the sports scouting market. And the image below helps to visualise some of the other competitors.
Based on some further analysis of the scouting market and $CAT's postion I got the following assessment to the question: How strong a move would an acquistion of IMPECT by Catapult be?
Answer:
Major uplift, not merely incremental: acquiring IMPECT would likely elevate Catapult from a performance / video-centric firm into a strong contender in the hybrid “video + data + analytics” scouting / recruitment technology market.
Positioning shift: Catapult would gain more legitimacy as a full-suite sports intelligence / decision-support company, rather than being pigeonholed in performance & load management.
Barrier creation: It would make it harder for other analytics specialists to partner or compete in markets Catapult serves.
Scale synergies: The bundling potential across Catapult’s large installed base is significant — many of its performance & video clients could be upsold into IMPECT-derived analytics.
If well executed, this move could shift Catapult from “a performance & analytics vendor with peripheral recruiting capability” to “a platform company offering end-to-end scouting, analytics, and performance operations.”
And to the question, What are the risks in an acquisition of IMPECT by Catapult adding value?
The unsurprising response:
Integration risk (technical & culture)
- Merging IMPECT’s analytics stack, data pipelines, APIs, and team with Catapult’s existing architecture (Vector, Thunder, video) may be nontrivial.
- Differences in engineering architecture, metric definitions, data models, or organizational culture could slow or dilute the synergistic gain.
Overlap or redundancy
- Catapult may already have nascent analytics teams or modules; integrating IMPECT may lead to internal overlap, conflicting definitions, or “double maintenance.”
- Some clients might resist switching metric definitions or adopting “black box” proprietary analytics.
Cost and valuation risk
- Paying a premium for IMPECT might compress returns, especially if adoption is slower or if clients are reluctant to pay extra for analytics.
- The acquisition must deliver clear ROI (in sales growth or margin expansion) to justify the price.
Market and client inertia
- Many clubs are already committed to analytics providers (Wyscout, Opta, SciSports, etc.). Convincing them to switch or adopt a new stack could be slow.
- Clients in less-data-savvy markets may not fully use or appreciate advanced metrics, reducing incremental value.
Regulatory / data licensing constraints
- Some leagues or federations restrict data access or have exclusive licensing deals. Even if Catapult acquires IMPECT, coverage in certain markets might remain limited.
- Harmonizing licensing and usage rights across regions could be tricky.
Brand and positioning challenges
- Catapult must manage perception: it must not appear as just a “wearables company trying to do scouting analytics” — clients may resist being “jack-of-all-trades.”
- Catapult would need to ensure that its offering is viewed as credible in the scouting / analytics domain, not just performance tech.
My Overall Assessment
The "industrial logic" of the deal makes sense.
But $CAT have paid fully for it at 11.1x 2025 ACV. (Note: $CAT is currently trading at 10.8x 1HFY26 ACV by my estimation).
However, as @Strawman points out with only $US46m upfront amd US$44m phased over 4 years, of which US$12m is subject to performance hurdles being met, the effective economic cost of the acquisition is somewhat lower than the headline number. Considering the time value of money discounted at 10%, I estimate the acquision to be worth US$71.3m if NO performance hurdles are met and US$80.9m if all performance hurdles are met.
Even so, at $7.24, $CAT remains well above my upper valuation limit and, in RL, it is one of the positions I have trimmed recently when it flew up recenlty above $7.60. (50% sold down in RL.)
The SPP offering of $6.68 per new share is still above the upper limit of my valuation range, so I don't see value here and will not be participating in the SPP.
My RL position size of $CAT is currently 3.7%, and I will consider adding back more should the SP fall back closter to $6.00, which I imagine it could well do at some point.
Interestingly, on valuation, the revenue growth rate on the 1HFY26 of 15%-16% is well below the level required to hit the higher ends of my valuation range ($4.50 - $6.50), albeit I would never form a view on this based on a single 6-month datapoint.
Disc: Held in RL and SM
Discl: Held IRL and in SM
Agree with both @Strawman and @mikebrisy - that ecosystem chart was really helpful, thanks!
In digesting the announcement, I focused on the impact of Impect (pun absolutely intended!) on the overall CAT platform.
SUMMARY
- This acquisition makes really good sense, in terms of the impact on the CAT platform and the financials, pre-and post acquisition - this adds to my increasing confidence that CAT M&A is now smart, and no longer the dumb approach it was before Will came onboard
- Impect materially adds to both ends of the CAT platform continuum - Scouting and Tactics, this simultaneously expands/broadens AND deepens the CAT moat. This is the key point for me
- Given the relative “newness” of Impect - they were founded in 2014, I don’t see technical integration being a huge issue for CAT as (1) the CAT platform is probably designed to enable such integrations/bolt-ons (2) Impect is a cloud-based solution. The issue will be more functional integration - how to add and make it work seamlessly in the existing CAT workflows
Not sure what I will do with the SPP just yet ...
KEY TAKEAWAYS
Solves Scouting Industry Problems
- The Scouting Ecosystem is fragmented - gaps in quality, inconsistency in delivery - no one has truly solved the problem
- Other solutions are no/low profitability - Impect has not only solved these problems but has done so in a highly profitable, scalable way
- Rather than “AI”, a combined CAT-Impect platform actually helps build/codify “organisational intelligence” through its frameworks, video and player data and the resulting analysis that it enables
Broadens and Deepens the CAT Moat
This was a key slide as it shows how Impect expands BOTH ENDS of the end-to-end continuum that CAT now plays in - this simultaneously expands/broadens AND deepens the CAT moat.
Additional Addressable Market
- Tool is primarily designed for professional soccer - every one of CAT’s ~1,500 soccer customers will be the addressable market for Impect - 1/3 of CAT’s revenue is driven by professional soccer
- Apart from top 5% of professional soccer teams, the 95% of other professional soccer teams derive their revenue primarily from trading players - Impect will help in finding the player that can be built on for those teams - hugely advantageous
- Impect’s product could be expanded into other “flow sports” - basketball, ice hockey, over time
- Low hanging fruit is to combine Impect with the Pro video suite and cross sell to the ~1,500 pro soccer team customers who are wearable clients but are not T&C clients - opportunity to bundle with other CAT products
Strong M&A Diligence
- Will's explanation on the acquisition decision making process is consistent with his previous commentary - must be offering what customers want/need, must be scalable, must add to the value of CAT’s platform, must be profitable growth accretive to CAT’s financial metrics including profitability and Rule of 40.
- There appears to be a strong focus on not diluting CAT’s margins and Rule of 40 focus
- No significant investment to cost base other than to add Impect’s current cost base
- The scaling opportunity and impact was brought home quite nicely in the Q&A where Will said that Impect’s current Sales team is 2 vs CAT’s 100 ... no need to add sales cost to push out Impect
Trading Update
Very nice trading update - ACV Growth of 19% -> translating into 15-16% revenue growth -> Management EBITDA of 45-53% -> almost 50% more FCF, ex-transaction costs, shows continued benefits of operating leverage and FCF generation
Below from Market Index.
Catapult kicks off $150 million raise to acquire IMPECT GmbH
Catapult Sports plans to acquire soccer analytics firm IMPECT for up to €78 million (~A$139m), launching a $150 million equity raise to fund the transaction. Some of the key transaction highlights include:
- IMPECT is a leading soccer analytics software provider for scouting and tactical analysis, offering proprietary Packing metrics for player performance and team dynamics insights
- Total consideration up to €78m comprises €40m upfront cash (fully funded by placement), plus deferred/contingent payments up to €38m over four years with €10m subject to performance hurdles
- Transaction targeted to complete within 15 business days and is immediately accretive to Catapult's ACV growth
- Equity raise includes fully underwritten A$130m institutional placement and non-underwritten A$20m SPP at A$6.68 per share (7.7% discount to last close)
- FY26 guidance reaffirmed for strong ACV growth with low churn, continued cost margin improvement, and higher free cash flow as business scales