AHEAD Continues Growth Push With Two MSP Acquisitions
Cloud solution provider will become a $2.1 billion powerhouse with RoundTower and Kovarus in the fold
AHEAD is buying two MSPs as part of a larger push to expand its presence in North America through acquisitions.
The Lowdown: The move by AHEAD to buy RoundTower Technologies and Kovarus comes three weeks after private investment firm Centerbridge Partners announced it’s buying a majority stake in the Chicago-based cloud solution provider.
The Details: The two acquisitions will give AHEAD greater scale and national reach and a larger service portfolio, creating a business with more than 1,000 employees and $2.1 billion in gross revenue.
RoundTower, based in Cincinnati, Ohio, focuses on a range of areas in the IT field, including data center infrastructure, converged platforms, cloud automation and orchestration, DevOps, data analytics, and cybersecurity. The company will give AHEAD a stronger presence in the eastern half of the United States, particularly in New England, Ohio, Florida, North Carolina, and South Carolina.
Kovarus, with headquarters in San Ramon, California, helps AHEAD expand in the West in such states as Arizona, California – including with clients in Silicon Valley – Colorado, Oregon, and Washington. It offers services in such areas as infrastructure and cloud automation and application delivery.
The deals for RoundTower and Kovarus – as well as Centerbridge’s majority stake purchase of AHEAD – are expected to close by the end of October. No financial details were released.
The Impact: AHEAD, which counts top-tier vendors like Dell, Cisco, VMware, and ServiceNow and cloud service providers Amazon Web Services (AWS) and Microsoft Azure as partners, has been on a buying spree for more than a year to become a larger player in the IT channel space. It bought Link Solutions and Sovereign Systems in 2019 and Platform Consulting Group earlier this year. At the time of the Sovereign purchase, AHEAD also was merging with Data Blue.
Over the past five years, AHEAD’s revenue has jumped from $356 million to $1.3 billion this year. During the same time, the company’s professional services business grew from $18 million to more than $100 million and it expanded its capabilities in such areas as the cloud, enterprise services management and monitoring, and analytics.
The Buzz: “The addition of RoundTower and Kovarus to the AHEAD team solidifies our position as the premier provider of digital infrastructure and modern applications in the U.S.,” AHEAD CEO Daniel Adamany said. “Together, we’ll better meet the end-to-end needs of our enterprise clients, from strategic consulting to complex implementations to managed services for ongoing operations – all while maintaining the deep platform expertise on which we were founded.”
“With similar backgrounds and business models, this partnership has been a long time coming,” said Stephen West, managing partner at RoundTower. “Joining forces with AHEAD and Kovarus will significantly elevate the level of service available to our clients and further separate us from the competition.”
“Culture makes all the difference when it comes to combining companies,” said Peter Castaldi, principal and co-founder of Kovarus. “Our three firms share similar values and purpose, as well as deep commitments to client success. We look forward to bringing a larger portfolio of services to help our customers on their digital transformation journeys.”
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