M&A Activity in Tech Sector Is Booming, Shows No Sign of Slowing
ConnectWise’s acquisition of Service Leadership and Pax8’s new partnership with RocketCyber are among the highlights.
February 11, 2021
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ConnectWise recently acquired Service Leadership Inc., a data-driven technology service provider (TSP) consulting firm. With this acquisition, ConnectWise will pair its TSP software and services platform, the IT Nation community, and business maturity and leadership coaching program with the industry’s value creation, financial performance and operational maturity benchmarking and best practices from Service Leadership.
ConnectWise says that the next frontier for TSPs is leveraging data to drive up their value, and value to their customers. Not only that, but to position themselves for their best exit. This acquisition is designed to help ConnectWise partners who want to drive faster performance and maximize their business profit potential by providing a practical path to higher operational maturity and financial performance.
Speaking of ConnectWise, BeeCastle, an Australia-based data analytics company, last week announced that it has integrated with ConnectWise.
BeeCastle uses advanced data analytics and integrations with the Microsoft suite to map relationships statuses with clients facilitating data-driven decision making. BeeCastle is cloud-based and surfaces in Microsoft Teams, Microsoft Outlook and its own mobile app.
BeeCastle provides both enterprises and SMEs the dashboards and tools they need to understand the status of their business relationships. It also cuts down on churn and increases sales through data-driven insights.
The integration with ConnectWise provides TSPs and MSPs a smooth solution to view the status of their client relationships and to run advanced analytics on their teams’ activity with clients.
Pax8 recently announced a new partnership with RocketCyber. This aims to enable MSPs deliver their clients continuous cybersecurity detection and response. Partners in North America will be able monitor their clients’ endpoints, networks and cloud activity, offering increased security and threat protection.
Ryan Walsh, chief product officer and channel chief at Pax8, touts being able to offer his partner community RocketCyber’s security and threat protection solutions, uniquely built to integrate with MSPs technology stack.
“RocketCyber’s advanced threat monitoring platform enables partners to not only detect malicious and suspicious activity on their clients’ systems but also act on those threats, ensuring data is kept safe, and work is uninterrupted,” said Walsh.
RocketCyber offers MSPs and their clients the following benefits:
24/7 real-time cyber security monitoring
Integration with popular RMMs and PSAs
SIEMless log monitoring across cloud, network, and endpoint attack vectors
Intrusion detection monitoring
Threat remediation and isolation
Next-generation malware prevention
Breach detection and threat hunting
Microsoft 365 threat monitoring
NuMSP, a provider of IT and cybersecurity solutions, recently expanded its presence in Ohio with the acquisition of K-Tech Solutions, an MSP that offers IT solutions for SMBs.
This acquisition, the 15th for NuMSP, is part of the company’s continued efforts to fulfill the IT service needs of SMBs in every major market across the country. NuMSP is building a nationwide company with the scale and resources to deliver advanced IT services to SMBs.
NetGain Technologies recently announced the acquisition of Arnet Technologies and LK TECH. Acquiring these two businesses aims to expand NetGain’s footprint in Ohio.
Employees of both Arnet Technologies and LK TECH are to join the NetGain team. Arnet Technologies provides enterprise-level managed IT services, cloud computing and IT support to small and medium businesses in Columbus, Ohio. LK TECH provides IT services and solutions to entrepreneurs and small and middle market businesses, governmental entities, and nonprofit organizations in the Greater Cincinnati area.
Both acquired organizations will benefit from additional resources and investments in marketing, sales, human relations and finance, NetGain said.
Furthermore, NetGain Technologies says it continues to pursue acquisition opportunities.
Ivanti recently announced an agreement to acquire Cherwell Software, the enterprise service management provider.
By acquiring Cherwell, Ivanti says it will expand the reach of its Neurons hyperautomation platform, providing end-to-end service and asset management from IT to lines of business and from every endpoint to the IoT edge. Ivanti will continue to maintain and invest in both Cherwell and Ivanti service management platforms while working to converge the best aspects of each.
Neurons fast-tracks this by connecting unified endpoint management, security and enterprise service management solutions. It also provides a single pane of glass for enterprises to proactively and autonomously self-heal and self-secure devices, as well as self-service end users. When the transaction is complete, the combined company will continue to be led by Ivanti chairman and CEO Jim Schaper.
CompassMSP just announced the acquisition of Hartford, Connecticut-based IT Direct. The acquisition is the company’s eleventh and its largest to date, bolstering its presence in New England and along the Eastern Seaboard.
In addition, Ari Santiago, CEO and founder of IT Direct, has been appointed the company’s chief executive officer, succeeding Josh Kotler, who will be responsible for running Compass’ acquisition efforts as chief strategy officer and head of acquisitions. Santiago will be a member of the company’s board. With these changes, the Compass headquarters will move to Hartford.
Compass plans to continue its acquisition strategy. It has a targeted acquisition program and will continue to partner with strong leaders of well-run managed services businesses. The goal is to invest further in New England to scale and better serve clients.
Green Cloud Technologies, the cloud technology solutions provider, has reached a definitive agreement to buyCascade Defense, a full-service MSSP in Spokane, Washington. The transaction, which is expected to close this quarter, is designed to boost and expand Green Cloud’s security product portfolio.
Green Cloud is one of the largest independent, channel-only cloud infrastructure-as-a-service (IaaS) providers in the country that sells to MSPs and VARs. It provides more than 650 partners with advanced cybersecurity solutions. With Cascade’s added technology and expertise, Green Cloud gets a Fortinet MSSP Expert partner and a full-service security operations center (SOC). In conjunction with the acquisition, Green Cloud will roll out fully managed security information and event management (SIEM) software and a SOC as a service (SOCaaS) to its MSP partners.
Green Cloud Technologies, the cloud technology solutions provider, has reached a definitive agreement to buyCascade Defense, a full-service MSSP in Spokane, Washington. The transaction, which is expected to close this quarter, is designed to boost and expand Green Cloud’s security product portfolio.
Green Cloud is one of the largest independent, channel-only cloud infrastructure-as-a-service (IaaS) providers in the country that sells to MSPs and VARs. It provides more than 650 partners with advanced cybersecurity solutions. With Cascade’s added technology and expertise, Green Cloud gets a Fortinet MSSP Expert partner and a full-service security operations center (SOC). In conjunction with the acquisition, Green Cloud will roll out fully managed security information and event management (SIEM) software and a SOC as a service (SOCaaS) to its MSP partners.
2020 was a year of twists and turns and ups and downs that not even the most adept of fortune tellers could have predicted. Finding one’s business bearings was, at times, like trying to find a cotton ball in a blizzard.
Yet somehow, through the chaos, spending on tech mergers and acquisitions (M&A) soared to its highest level in years. Almost impossibly, the total value of tech and telecom transactions announced around the plague-ravaged world in 2020 topped $600 billion, according to 451 Research’s M&A KnowledgeBase. MSPs were at the center of many deals.
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Highlights
According to S&P Global’s Market Intelligence’s annual Tech M&A Outlook, there are a few key highlights worth noting:
Last year’s record spending came in more than 25% higher than the firm recorded for the “before times” year 2019. Furthermore, it was more than four times the amount spent in the similarly recession-scarred year of 2009.
The data showed a staggering $485 billion worth of spending on tech and telecom acquisitions in aggregate for the final two quarters of 2020. That pushed the value of deals announced in just the final half of last year higher than the full-year totals for every year except two since 2002 (according to the M&A KnowledgeBase). To top that off, the tech M&A market exited 2020 at a trillion-dollar run rate.
The second half of 2020 marked a record level of spending as emboldened acquirers started making larger tech purchases. Tech vendors were announcing multibillion-dollar deals that would have been unimaginable just a few months earlier.
In the case of COVID-19, the slowdown was measured in mere months, rather than years. Already by summer, acquirers’ pent-up demand – combined with Wall Street’s confidence in the tech sector to thrive, not just survive, during the lockdown – flooded into the tech mergers and acquisitions market.
Already in the second month of 2021, the appetite for M&A shows no signs of slowing. See our slideshow above to see which recent deals have made headlines, most notably in the MSP community.
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