Seattle-based cloud services company 2nd Watch has acquired Aptitive, an analytics and data consulting company headquartered in Chicago.
2nd Watch CEO Doug Schneider said Aptitive has more than 50 employees, all of whom will be joining 2nd Watch but will not have to relocate, as company employees are already geographically spread out. He added that the combined company will now have about 300 total employees. The companies are not disclosing the financial terms of the deal.
"This acquisition has nothing to do with cost synergy. It's about growth synergy and accelerating our collective business going forward," Schneider said. "(Aptitive's) practice and their business that they've built really becomes the core for us of this new data insights practice that we're forming on the heels of this acquisition."
Schneider said Aptitive will keep its brand for the time being but will be known as a 2nd Watch company. Eventually, the Aptitive brand will fold into the 2nd Watch brand, according to Schneider.
2nd Watch, founded in 2010, helps clients use the cloud for IT and business functions. In addition to helping clients move to the cloud, 2nd Watch helps clients improve their apps and make better decisions using their data. According to Schneider, the company works with mid-market and larger enterprises. 2nd Watch's clients include Red Lion Hotels, Yamaha and Crate & Barrel.
Aptitive, meanwhile, was founded in 2013. The company helps clients make better use of their data, which Schneider said will strengthen 2nd Watch's own services in that field. Aptitive works with companies in the health care, insurance and retail sectors, among others. Its clients include Echo and Discover.
"A lot of data is still locked in data silos, legacy platforms and legacy data warehouses," Schneider said. "What we're really trying to do is elevate the platforms people are using to be more cloud-native and more modern, and then you can start to apply more modern analytics and ultimately data science to make that data more actionable and more predictive."
