Bridgepointe 'Certainly' Looking to Buy Partners as Part of Investment

Bridgepointe Technologies will grow its staff and pursue acquisitions thanks to its recent private equity funding.

The California-based IT strategy firm last week announced a $100 million-plus growth investment from Charlesbank Capital Partners. As a result, 20-year-old Bridgepointe will most likely triple its staff in the upcoming two years, according to co-founder Scott Evars.

Moreover, Evars said Bridgepointe will evaluate regional TSBs and other partners who bring diverse geographic footprint and a growth mindset.

Evars spoke to Channel Futures in depth about Bridgepointe’s expansion plans. We have edited the transcript for length and clarity.

Channel Futures: How did you find Charlesbank?

Bridgepointe Technologies’ Scott Evars

Scott Evars: As you know, there’s been a ton of investment activity, starting all the way back with [ScanSource buying] Intelisys. That has steadily ramped up over the last year or so. Having done this for 20 years on our own, we started accepting more calls. We hadn’t really accepted calls for a period of time. Charlesbank, along with a few others, reached out to us. And we started having meetings with them in the late spring. We kind of hit the pause button on our conversations and hired the investment banking firm Q Advisors out of Denver. We got a little bit more disciplined around exactly what our pitch was and went through quality of earnings. Ultimately we ran a process and then selected Charlesbank, whom we were talking to six months prior.

The main thing with Charlesbank is that from the beginning it was obvious that they spent a lot of time understanding our space and, more specifically, us. Ultimately, they are firm believers in our model, mission and vision of starting at the customer. That’s our mission and vision; to be with our IT strategists in front of mid- and large enterprise customers to help them make the best IT decision for their company. And Charlesbank were the ones who are most interested in that model, but also believed in the acceleration of that and the total addressable market opportunity that’s out there.

Scroll through our slideshow above for the rest of the Q&A, including Evars’ take on expanding his staff; plus, how Bridgepointe Technologies has evolved over the years and what he thinks of all of the private equity entering the channel.