Net at Work Takes Investment, Plans to Dominate SMB Market

Net at Work, a $100 million technology and business solution provider with a strong MSP practice, has partnered with private-equity (PE) shop Lovell Minnick Partners in an investment deal that will help the company achieve its plans to grow.

Based in New York City, Net at Work, No. 258 on the 2023 Channel Futures MSP 501 ranking of the top managed service providers in the world, has a national reach and a unique business model. Instead of viewing other solution providers as competitors, Alex Solomon, who founded the company 26 years ago with his brother Edward, views them as potential partners that can leverage Net at Work’s multiple businesses and divisions, which include of ERP/accounting, CRM HR, cloud and e-commerce.

Net at Work’s Alex Solomon

“Net at Work is a technology consulting firm that handles the end-to-end for SMB clients,” Alex Solomon said. “Our goal is to unleash the power of our clients’ businesses through leveraging technology.”

The Solomons will use the investment to build out Net at Work’s divisions, acquire other companies – including MSPs – and hire talent. The brothers have shied away from accepting outside money and accumulating debt in the past. They grew the business organically and acquired what they could afford. But that philosophy changed once the business hit $50 million and began approaching the $100 million mark. As the business grew, so did its need to scale and acquire additional talent and customers.

“In order for us to truly scale right now, we [have] to start doing some of those bigger acquisitions,” Solomon said. “We need more talent; we can get a lot of that from some of the bigger acquisitions.”

Net at Work Teams with Solution Providers

To continue growing its customer base faster than one client at a time, Net at Work is partnering with solution providers. To do so, the brothers built the Partner Alliance Program, which now includes 300 technology partners that can provide Net at Work’s full suite of offerings to their clients.

“In essence, we took a look at our competitors and said, ‘You’re no longer competitors. You are our partners. We’re happy to walk away from any business we compete with you on, but your customers need a lot more than what you do for them,’” he said. “If you’re a managed services company today and the trusted advisor for that client on all things technology, how do you not talk about ERP and CRM and HR and cloud and HR? PE is a way for us to scale the aspect of that business and build out the channel.”

Net at Work acquired two managed service companies years ago, establishing a local presence in the Northeast and a bit in Florida. It now plans to buy more MSPs to complement the national reach of its other businesses.

“As we continue to scale, we’ll start taking the MSP to a national level,” Solomon said. “Now acquisitions will start to kick in.”

With the investment, Solomon sees Net at Work dominating in the SMB market, the way companies like Deloitte and PwC dominate the enterprise. Along the way, Net at Work will also build out its digital operations platform (DOP). That platform takes the latest applications for next-generation technologies and integrates them on the cloud, so they’re all talking to each other and sharing essential information. Traditional clients with legacy systems, which make up a large part of its customer base, are prime targets.

“The future is cloud. The future is them going to the cloud, to next-gen, integrated applications,” he said. “To do that, they need to be on a true DOP. The investment is really to bolster our DOP, make larger acquisitions, and to really solidify our channel program and continue to grow it.”