Accuvant Snaps Up Security VAR
Financial terms of the deal were not disclosed. Ciphent is on pace to do $20 million in revenue for 2010, according to Accuvant, and the combined company will be on pace to exceed $250 million.
It is the first acquisition in Accuvant's eight-year history.
"We're certainly excited about it," said Scott Walker, co-founder and vice president of strategic planning, in an interview with CRN. "The reason we haven't done any other acquisitions in the past is we've been really successful about finding talent. That's how we've done business and we've grown that way and never been slowed down. We just didn't find organizations that are able to keep up with us."
Walker said Accuvant had kicked the tires on a number of acquisitions in the past, but Ciphent had all aces: growth potential, complementary markets, expanded geographic reach and what Walker says is a closely-aligned cultural fit.
All of Ciphent's 87 employees will join Accuvant -- bringing the Denver VAR's headcount to more than 300 -- and its top executives, CEO James C. Foster and COO Andrew Eye, will join Accuvant's executive team in yet-to-be-defined roles. For the time being, Walker said, Ciphent will operate as a subsidiary of Accuvant.
About half of Ciphent's existing revenue comes from 20 agencies in the federal government, where Accuvant, despite its state and local business, did not previously play. Ciphent also adds to Accuvant's midmarket commercial accounts and provides it scale in the mid-Atlantic U.S. for the first time, as well as new strength in Europe and the Asia-Pacific region.
Accuvant doesn't gain new vendor relationships, but it will add Ciphent's breadth of services offerings -- consulting, on-demand services, managed services and custom device management among them -- to its own consulting practice areas. It also gains Ciphent's Security Operations Center (SOC), and its software development team.
"We're going to be joined at the hip and closely integrated," Walker said. "This isn't one of those where you buy a company for the piece of the company and then let the rest go away. Everything they do has interest and value for us."
Accuvant will continue to look at acquisition targets, he said, but the company was already on pace to double in size over the next few years without M&A activity. With consolidation sweeping the security space right now, Walker added, it pays to be a more patient and strategic acquirer.
"Oftentimes with these deals it's one plus one equals a half," he said. "We're really committed to not doing that. This is a big move for us, one that we're excited about, and it would unacceptable to have anything other than a great outcome."