Latest Big Channel M&A: HPE, Nextiva, Accenture, SonicWall, More
Upstack, Bridgepointe and Amplix continued their acquisition sprees in the traditional telco channel; plus, The 20 MSP added to its rolls and a handful of security companies did some wheeling and dealing.
![Mergers and acquisitions (M&A) in the channel January 2024 Mergers and acquisitions (M&A) in the channel January 2024](https://eu-images.contentstack.com/v3/assets/blt10e444bce2d36aa8/bltf414920bdf52a13b/6583310df8fa85040ae066d8/10_-_M&A.jpg?width=700&auto=webp&quality=80&disable=upscale)
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Might as well start big.
It only took a few hours after the news started trickling out on Jan. 9 for HPE to confirm it had a deal in place to buy fellow IT behemoth Juniper Networks. The purchase price is $14 billion.
If it gets regulatory approval, it will provide an even bigger rival to Cisco when HPE combines Juniper with its own Aruba networking business. It will further bolster Juniper Networks' footprint in data centers and with cloud providers, the companies said.
Look for Juniper CEO Rami Rahim to run the combined HPE networking unit once the deal closes toward the end of this year or early next.
Read our article on the news for more information. Then check out what the two CEOs had to say and what partners think of the deal.
Cybersecurity company SonicWall acquired Banyan Security, known for its security service edge (SSE) solutions. The purchase came just a few weeks after SonicWall's acquisition of Solutions Granted.
The Banyan acquisition adds to the SonicWall portfolio zero-trust security for small businesses that are replacing legacy systems with SSE solutions.
SonicWall told Channel Futures that this deal gives partners a way to deploy a comprehensive secure access service edge (SASE) architecture that leverages SSE capabilities integrated with SD-WAN, network and security technologies, all managed through a unified platform with flexible as-a-service consumption models and customer service.
Get the full scoop on the acquisition.
Amplix gave us what was the very first acquisition of 2024, announcing that it would buy Go2 Communications.
Boston-based Amplix, which provides tech advisory, consulting, implementation and managed services to customers around the U.S., is the result of a merger of three technology advisor firms in December 2022. Since then, it's been on a buying spree, now with four acquisitions in as many months.
Go2 Communications, a telecom agency, said that being acquired will "open up tremendous growth prospects for our business."
Read more about Amplix and Go2.
Another company making a big splash over the past year or more in the tech advisory (TA) space is Bridgepointe Technologies. The California-based firm is making a habit of pouring equity investments into agent businesses.
One of its most noteworthy happened last month when it welcomed well-known TA agency BlueSky IT Partners into its fold, and brought on BlueSky founder and CEO Meg Toups as an equity partner.
BlueSky's IT field services division will remain independent, while the agency side of the business will adopt the branding "Powered by Bridgepointe."
Bridgepointe itself is backed by Charlesbank.
Cloud security company Snyk said it will buy Helios, based in Israel, in a move that will advance its cloud-to-code risk visibility.
Snyk says the move evolves its AppRisk platform and allows enterprise security teams to more effectively manage their global application security programs at scale.
The company says Helios' risk visibility functionality means Snyk can bring greater benefit to its strategic partners.
Nextiva, the cloud and business communications provider, said it bought Thrio to enhance its AI-based products and services.
Thrio offers a unified routing engine that automates workflows for inbound and outbound customer interactions.
The acquisition builds on Nextiva's 2023 acquisition of Simplify360, a customer experience platform provider.
Nextiva says the Thrio purchase will expand its internal customer experience capabilities that in turn will give partners a better product to sell.
Here's the full deal on the deal.
Distributor Westcon-Comstor added to its cloud gravitas with the acquisition of Rebura, an AWS advanced service partner based in the U.K.
The combination results in a "powerful cloud offering for channel partners," noted Westcon. It enables partners to offer a suite of AWS solutions to their customers via the distributor.
Rebura's CEO said becoming part of Westcon-Comstor gives his company a "much bigger platform to grow" and sell to a wider audience.
More details are here.
New Charter Technologies brought another MSP under its wing in January, just the latest investment in the space, of which there have been many.
Computer Transition Services Inc. (CTSI) was the company's latest target. The security-focused company serves businesses in West Texas and throughout eastern New Mexico.
CTSI's president says being under the New Charter umbrella is a natural progression of the success his company has had.
This is where to learn more.
The 20 MSP kept its acquisition spree going with its first deal of the new year, but 27th overall since 2022.
This one is Data Tech Café, an IT services and consulting company that has been a member of The 20's membership-based growth platform, The 20 MSP Group.
Detroit-based Data Tech Café serves customers in multiple states.
The 20 MSP's acquisitions are fueled by an investment through Pinecrest Capital Partners.
Channel Program, the vendor sourcing and optimization network for MSPs, acquired RocketMSP.
The companies expect that by joining forces they can further increase transparency for MSPs seeking answers about solutions. Together, they plan to increase the creation of engaging, informative video and podcast content that adds value for Channel Program members.
RocketMSP founder Steve Taylor is joining the Channel Program team.
Genesys, which now bills itself as a global cloud leader in AI-powered experience orchestration, announced that it's buying Radarr Technologies, a company that provides AI-based social and digital-listening, analytics and customer engagement services.
Genesys expects its Genesys Cloud to get a bit lift as it integrates Radarr's comprehensive social media capabilities into the platform.
Look for Genesys Cloud customers to get direct access to new conversation streams from public social media posts across multiple platforms as a result of the deal.
Iron Mountain, the information management services vendor, closed on its acquisition of Regency Technologies, which provides IT asset disposition (ITAD) services in the U.S.
Iron Mountain expects combining its platform with Regency's will establish a "market leader" in IT asset disposition customer solutions.
The acquisition builds on what Iron Mountain says is an "extensive" logistics network that already offers customers IT asset life-cycle management.
"The synergy between our two organizations will result in a wider network that provides our clients with faster services while significantly reducing environmental impact," said Mark Kidd, EVP and general manager, asset lifecycle management and data centers, at Iron Mountain.
Evergreen Services Group, a consortium of managed IT services and software companies, added two more to its lineup in January.
The first was Lancom Technology, an MSP in New Zealand that also has a presence in Australia. It's Evergreen's first foray into the MSP space in that part of the world.
Lancom specializes in software development, cloud services, managed services and business process automation.
Just 10 days later, Evergreen said it would buy Florida-based i-Tech Support, an MSP and Acumatica reseller. i-Tech was founded in 1999 as an MSP working with private businesses, nonprofits and educational institutions. It has since expanded into enterprise resource planning.
Here's some more information on these acquisitions.
Cloud storage provider Wasabi just picked up an intelligent data platform from GrayMeta.
The company will bring on both Curio AI's intellectual property and personnel. That includes GrayMeta CEO Aaron Edell.
Wasabi plans to incorporate Curio AI technology into a new class of AI-powered intelligent storage for the media and entertainment industry.
Get more information about what Curio AI does.
Digital solutions provider Xperience Group just acquired GCC Group, the U.K.-based managed IT services and business applications solutions (ERP and CRM) provider.
GCC supports 600 customers in the nonprofit, professional services, wholesale, distribution and financial services sectors.
This acquisition is the third in the past two years for Xperience, growing its network of offices across the U.K.
Upstack, which has made a business of buying technology advisors over the past couple of years, bought another.
12-year-old channel partner Stategic Telecom Partners (STP) is now part of Upstack. STP's founder, Brad Carell, is staying on as partner and managing director.
This is acquisition No. 32 for Upstack, which is backed financially by Berkshire Partners.
Here's more on what STP brings to Upstack.
Professional services giant Accenture is gobbling up Navisite, the large MSP. Look for the move to boost Accenture's application and managed infrastructure capabilities in North America.
Accenture says Navisite's application software maintenance, enterprise hosting and cloud desktop services blend well with its own wide range of services and solutions in strategy, consulting, digital, technology and operations.
Furthermore, Accenture believes the acquisition will enhance its ability to help customers in the U.S. and Canada modernize for artificial intelligence.
No word on how much Accenture is shelling out for Navisite, which you can learn more about here.
A pair of telecom serviceabliity and sales platforms, Connectbase and MasterStream ERP, are integrating in a move that Connectbase expects will help it build more of a partner focus into its platform.
MasterStream has traditionally helped telecom sellers configure, price and quote solutions. The Connectbase CEO told us that his company primarily has been focused on the wholesale community with its two data clouds. Now, with MasterStream, Connectbase has quoting capabilities tailored to the channel.
The full scoop on the acquisition is here.
Delinea, the security provider that focuses on privileged access management (PAM), acquired Authomize, an Israeli startup. Authomize helps businesses protect their identity infrastructure.
Delinea is excited about combining its SaaS solutions for PAM with the continuous discovery and visibility capabilities of the Authomize platform. The move also expands Delinea's role in providing a strong defense for identity-based attacks such as account takeovers, insider threats and lateral movement, the company said.
Read about the partner opportunity.
Security vendor Mimecast is acquiring Elevate Security, a move that gives it human risk management capabilities.
Elevate Security brings to Mimecast proactive insights and deeper visibility into human behavior and risk, which help customers better protect the digital workplace. Elevate's platform ingests human behavior and context data from a range of sources. It then flags high-risk people using a risk scoring algorithm.
Mimecast says the acquisition will allow the company and its partners to meet customers’ heightened cybersecurity needs, especially as they relate to managing human risk.
Learn more about why human risk remains such a big obstacle to cyber safety.
One more cybersecurity deal: SentinelOne opened up its wallet for PingSafe, the cloud-native application protection (CNAPP) platform. No financial details, however, were disclosed.
PingSafe says it's the first CNAPP provider to bring "offensive" security testing to cloud security.
SentinelOne says it can now offer differentiated capabilities such as advanced secrets scanning of runtime and build-time environments, and an attack surface management rules engine that runs breach and attack simulation scenarios against internet-exposed cloud assets to identify how an adversary could compromise those assets.
Find out more about what those capabilities offer partners and customers.
One more cybersecurity deal: SentinelOne opened up its wallet for PingSafe, the cloud-native application protection (CNAPP) platform. No financial details, however, were disclosed.
PingSafe says it's the first CNAPP provider to bring "offensive" security testing to cloud security.
SentinelOne says it can now offer differentiated capabilities such as advanced secrets scanning of runtime and build-time environments, and an attack surface management rules engine that runs breach and attack simulation scenarios against internet-exposed cloud assets to identify how an adversary could compromise those assets.
Find out more about what those capabilities offer partners and customers.
The dawn of 2024 welcomed in a flurry of mergers and acquisitions involving companies that do business in the channel.
While a lot of eyes continue to be on the ramifications of Broadcom's acquisition of VMware, which the companies finalized last fall, HPE made a huge splash of its own when the calendar flipped. The IT giant said it would buy Juniper Networks for a staggering price tag of $14 billion, creating what will be a massive showdown with fellow networking leader Cisco.
But there were 20 more deals from January that we highlight in the slideshow above. Not all had such a large dollar value, but have significant impact on the channel nonetheless.
Take Accenture's play for Navisite. The professional services behemoth says this will bolster its application and managed infrastructure offerings in North America in a big way.
Then there's Nextiva, whose business communications and cloud products and services will now get a helping hand from Thrio's AI-based offerings, thanks to the former acquiring the latter.
Those are just a handful of the big channel-impacting mergers and acquisitions of note from the first month of 2024.
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