Final answer:
Top Gear Comp's acquisition of a coffeehouse chain constitutes a conglomerate merger, which is when a firm diversifies by owning multiple unrelated businesses.
Step-by-step explanation:
If Top Gear Comp, a tech firm, decides to invest some of its excess cash by acquiring a coffeehouse chain, this would be a conglomerate merger. A conglomerate merger is when a firm owns at least four businesses making unrelated products, which allows the corporation to diversify its interests and protect against losses in specific markets. This stands in contrast to a horizontal merger where a company joins with another that produces the same kind of product and a vertical merger which involves companies joining at different steps of a manufacturing process to streamline production and distribution.