WayForth just can't stop buying companies.
The Richmond-based estate management startup is adding to its acquisition streak with the purchase of Home Transition Resource, a provider of move management services in the Greater Boston area.
HTR, founded in 2008, offers offers services to families relocating in the Boston metro area, New Hampshire, and Maine. That makes it the northernmost acquisition target so far for Wayforth, which is nearing full coverage of the East Coast.
"Home Transition Resource is a client-focused company whose principles – both in how they think and how they act – are closely aligned with ours," WayForth co-founders CEO Craig Shealy and CPO Pete Shrock said in a joint statement. "We are confident Home Transition Resource will be powerful stewards of our integrated services in the Northeast.”
The deal adds to a string of acquisitions for the company just three years after launching, in what Shealy calls mainly a recruiting strategy.
Last year, it acquired two senior-focused moving companies: Haverton, Pa.-based Moving Solutions and Charlotte's Chaos to Calm.
In March, it scooped up 15-year-old Richmond firm Door to Door Solutions, one of Central Virginia’s largest senior-focused moving companies. Weeks later, it acquired Gaithersburg, Md.-based senior relocation company TAD to add 72 employees and coverage of the D.C. metro area.
Soon after, in August, the startup acquired Fulton, Md.-based Let’s Move to add 90 staffers and further dominate the DMV area's estate management industry. Following that deal, WayForth had about 320 employees, and the HTR acquisition adds 30 more.
The string of buys is meant not only to expand the firm's geographic reach, but also to add key leadership from an industry built on personal relationships.
HTR founder and owner Kate Grondin, a former medical social worker, brings 10 years of move management experience to its management team and is a board member for the National Association of Senior Move Managers.
Let's Move co-founders Allison Pihl and Kim McMahon worked with Grondin and her team frequently over the past few years, saying in a statement that they "welcome the expertise, client focus and quality of service they bring to the Northeast as part of our WayForth family.”
WayForth, which is funded in part by private family offices in Central Virginia, says its Richmond offices are growing, though not necessarily as a direct result of the latest acquisition. It now has 357 total employees and provides services along the East Coast from the Charlotte metro area to Maine.
