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ISSQUARED Acquires SMB IT Services Provider

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ISSQUARED CEO Bala Ramaiah
ISSQUARED CEO Bala Ramaiah

Another day, another acquisition.

Today’s consolidation news comes from the folks at ISSQUARED Inc., has have acquired California-based VAR and solution provider Starnet Data Design -- which specializes in IT networking, security and IT services.

Starnet, which operates mainly in California and Arizona, has been in business for more than 30 years. ISSQUARED says the acquisition will help the company push deeper into the SMB market. The combined organization will continue to be headquartered in the Greater Los Angeles area of California. Financial terms of the deal were not disclosed.

ISSQUARED focuses on information security and cloud infrastructure solutions for global enterprise companies in the biotech, pharmaceuticals, medical diagnostics, higher education, financial services/banking, and construction industries. This is the first acquisition since ISSQUARED launched in 2010.

ISSQUARED CEO Bala Ramaiah says his organization’s top priority is ensuring Starnet’s customers can quickly leverage ISSQUARED’s capabilities and software offerings. That includes ISSQUARED’s ORSUS software suite, which was launched last year to provide organization management, workforce management, portfolio management, asset management, sourcing management, identity and access management, and compliance management.

M&A activity involving VARs, MSPs and CSPs remains swift. ChannelE2E has tracked at least one M&A deal per business day for at least the past month. The M&A activity, at least anecdotally, seems stronger at this point in 2018 vs. 2017 -- which was a record year for deals.

Recent data shows M&A activity was up in the first quarter of 2018 over the previous year. According to the same report, the economic outlook for the rest of the year remains favorable for M&A deals.