MSP Ntiva Grows Geography, Talent With Latest Acquisition

‘My focus has been on looking for companies that are out there that have rock star talent, that would add geographies that we think would have scale, or industry verticals that we could market to and grow the business with,’ Ntiva CEO Steven Freidkin tells CRN.

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Managed IT service provider Ntiva last week acquired New York-based Diverse Technology Solutions in a bid to grow in more regions and create a deeper bench of technical staff, Ntiva CEO Steven Freidkin told CRN.

“We knew we wanted to be in New York. We knew we wanted the talent,” he said. “Really the focus with DTS was around the geography and the talent, and obviously all of that has to work with culture.”

He said the acquisition will increase Ntiva’s size by 10 percent in terms of revenue. It is the third acquisition for Ntiva in the last 12 months, for the company, and follows its purchase of Network Alliance in January and the purchase of the commercial managed services and hosting division of Lore Systems Inc., in December.

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“We’re not trying to go crazy here,” he said. “We want this to be long term and sustainable … My focus has been on looking for companies that are out there that have rock star talent, that would add geographies that we think would have scale, or industry verticals that we could market to and grow the business with. If those rock stars existed, and we could come together with similar culture and give them a place to really accelerate their growth, then I wanted to do it.”

He said Diverse Technology Solutions had a staff of rock star techs, great sales talent, and geographies in the greater New York and South Florida regions, where Freidkin expects there to be growth. He said New York—with its major metropolitan clients – is a place where he said Ntiva can gain market share, while South Florida is customer rich, but the MSP community lacks the operational maturity of other regions.

“Our opportunity is to come in and be a more experienced player,” he said. “But more importantly, that’s an area that has a lot of technical talent, with relatively low cost of living that are looking for opportunity to grow.”

Ntiva, which is headquartered in Tyson’s Corner, Va. and made CRN’s 2019 MSP 500 list, has about 150 employees and annual revenue of about $30 million. He said the DTS buy is the company’s third acquisition in the last 12 months.

Freidkin said he saw the MSP market changing years ago and has sought to acquire companies, rather than be acquired.

“With the fragmentation, with the commoditization there was going to be a consolidation, and frankly, it had already started,” he said. “Knowing that I believed in the purpose of growing people. I wanted to make sure we were the consolidator, and not the consolidated.”

In a statement, DTS founder and CEO Clay Hart said Ntiva was the company’s “first choice.”

“Middle market businesses want to deal with IT providers who are at a certain scale and who have the ability to support mission-critical workloads, as well as provide the security that is necessary as cyber threats continue to escalate,” Hart said. “This is the right time for us to join forces with Ntiva, providing an avenue for DTS employees to advance in their careers, as well as offer our clients a stronger portfolio of IT services.”