Google Channel Merger: Pythian Acquires Agosto

Two innovative cloud solution providers are merging in a deal that will create a consolidated powerhouse in the Google Cloud channel.

Pythian, a multi-cloud data analytics specialist owned by a private equity firm, said Thursday it has purchased Agosto, a Google Cloud reseller and specialist in IoT and other cutting-edge services.

The acquisition will establish Pythian as one of the largest and most-comprehensive services players in the Google ecosystem, where the company, despite working with all major clouds, has seen unique traction because of the data-centric capabilities of Google Cloud Platform (GCP), Pythian President Keith Millar told CRN.

Terms of the deal were not disclosed.

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While both companies are Premier Google Cloud partners, Agosto, based in Minneapolis, brings highly complementary capabilities as a large G Suite and GCP reseller, and through its experience implementing large IoT projects in manufacturing and other industries.

“The opportunity is to create one entity, one org, that has one clear value proposition for our customers, and for our partners like Google,” Agosto President Aric Bandy told CRN.

Mill Point Capital acquired Pythian, based in Toronto, last September with the vision of building out a services platform responsive to where the market, and IT budgets, were going. That involved a plan of bringing another company into the fold—and Mill Point’s advisers almost immediately initiated an M&A search, Millar said.

Agosto was the firm “that really stood out, really head-and-shoulders above everybody else,” Millar said.

With its focus on data services like artificial intelligence and analytics, Pythian had never developed a resale practice like Agosto’s, he told CRN.

But customers were asking for one solution provider to satisfy all their needs. Basically, they were saying to Pythian, “take this application stack off my hands,” Millar said.

Agosto is known for its IoT chops, a strategic component of its advanced services practice, but sees most of its revenue and engagements around reselling G Suite collaboration tools and offering DevOps-enablement services to customers that it’s on-boarding to GCP.

The combined company will have a “nice big check mark” across 90 percent of Google’s priority solutions, Millar said, and will be one of only a handful of Google partners that’s earned seven specializations.

Only a few of the world’s largest systems integrators will be able to match the size and scale of Pythian’s portfolio of Google Cloud services and solutions across verticals, Bandy added.

The two companies have been familiar for some time, and even did a few engagements together over the past year.

Agosto had fielded acquisition overtures in the past, Bandy said, but its shareholders would only consider a deal that presented what they considered the right strategic relationship.

“We were either going to build a platform or become part of a platform,” Bandy said. “There weren’t a lot of great options. Then conversation started with Pythian that was so unique compared to some of the others.”

Pythian, Google Cloud Data Analytics Partner of the Year in 2018, currently oversees 330 employees. While the company is based in Canada, about three-quarters of revenue is generated in the U.S. and it also does business in Europe and the Asia-Pacific region.

Agosto, Google Cloud Partner of the Year in 2013 and 2016, will maintain a 40-person team from its headquarters in Minneapolis, Bandy said, while leveraging the union to scale its business globally through Pythian offices in the United Kingdom and Australia.

The companies will start the process of integrating back-office, sales and marketing teams over the next 90 days.

Google Cloud channel chief Carolee Gearhart, in a statement, said, “We are pleased to see two of our key Google Cloud Premier Partners join forces to accelerate the Google Cloud transformation journey for all of our customers. We are excited to support this expanded customer offering.”