Converge Technology Solutions Acquires Dasher Technologies In M&A Push

Converge Technology Solutions on Thursday showed it is continuing an unbroken string of acquisitions aimed at building a North American channel powerhouse with the unveiling of its purchase of Dasher Technologies.

Dasher is the 19th acquisition for Converge Technology Solutions, which is significant given that Toronto-based CTS was founded in 2018.

Financial terms of the deal were not disclosed.

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Because of its string of acquisitions, Converge Technology Solutions in 2020 debuted on the CRN 2020 Solution Provider 500 at No. 50. Dasher is listed at No. 128 on the 2020 Solution Provider 500.

The acquisition is an exciting time for Campbell, Calif.-based Dasher Technologies, said Chris Saso, Dasher’s chief technology officer and a member of the team that ironed out the acquisition with CTS executives.

“One of the reasons we like this is they buy regional companies but leave them alone,” Saso told CRN. “And then they give those companies the ability to leverage other regional VARs.”

Converge approached Dasher about six months ago to discuss an acquisition, but Dasher CEO John Vigliecca told Converge several times there was no interest in getting acquired, Saso said.

“But John had a friend with a company that was previously acquired by Converge,” he said. “John called his friend to ask about Converge, and got a great report card early on.”

Converge on the Wednesday night company-wide call to announce the acquisition said the company had actually been eyeing Dasher since 2017, Saso said. Dasher had not been putting out feelers to get acquired, he said.

Dasher is Hewlett Packard Enterprise’s largest North America channel partner, and brings Converge an HPE platinum partner relationship, Saso said. “We are Converge’s highest-level HPE partner, he said.

Dasher is also Converge’s biggest acquisition to date, and greatly expands that company’s presence on the West Coast where it had previously acquired two smaller partners, he said.

Dasher also brings to Converge a new Nvidia DGX relationship to go with that company’s data sciences practice, and puts Converge into a higher level relationship with several other vendors including Palo Alto Networks, he said.

However, Saso said, it is not a one-way relationship as the acquisition also brings new opportunities for Dasher’s employees.

“Dasher in the past sold hardware and cloud solutions with some software licensing, but not as much on the SaaS side except for Microsoft,” he said. “Now we will see an expansion in SaaS with companies like Tableau and Snowflake, areas where we didn’t have expertise in before. We will be going to our existing clients to talk about new technologies.”

Dasher had also recently started hiring people to build the company’s recurring revenue, but the Converge relationship will accelerate this new business for Dasher, Saso said.

“Converge has managed services,” he said. “We started in managed services around hardware last year. this will accelerate the move for Dasher.”

Going forward, Dasher will be known as Dasher, a Converge Company, Saso said.

Dasher is the 19th acquisition for Converge in the three years since it was founded. The company in the two-month stretch between December and January made four acquisitions, including St. Louis-based Workgroup Connections, Denver-based CarpeDatum, New York-based Vicom Computer Services, and Regina, Saskatchewan-based Vivvo Application Studios.

Other acquisitions over the years include Corus Group, Northern Micro, Becker-Carroll, Key Information Systems, BlueChip Tek, Lighthouse Computer Systems, Software Information Systems, Nordisk Systems, Essex Technology Group, Datatrend Technologies, VSS, Solutions PCD, Unique Digital, and Accudata Systems.