Local tech company GoKart Labs has been scooped up by West Monroe Partners, a Chicago-based consulting firm with a presence in Minneapolis, the companies announced Tuesday.
Terms of the deal were not disclosed, but West Monroe said that its acquisition of GoKart is the largest in its 17-year history.
GoKart Co-founder and CEO Don Smithmier told the Minneapolis/St. Paul Business Journal that the brand will stick around until the end of 2019, when it will "sunset." Most of the company's employees have joined West Monroe, including the majority of the leadership team, though some people were let go due to redundancy.
Founded in 2009 by Smithmier and A.J. Meyer, Minneapolis-based GoKart is a digital product studio that works with businesses to construct technology platforms that solve business problems. In a release, West Monroe said that the acquisition of GoKart will allow it to launch more digital products and establish a more comprehensive set of digital offerings for clients.
"GoKart Labs' ability to invent, design and build custom digital experiences for industry-leading companies particularly aligns well with a large part of West Monroe's client base," Tom Ewers, managing director of West Monroe's Minneapolis office, said in a statement. "West Monroe has also found a great company, with strong alignment on cultural values, as well as extraordinary creative talent. I couldn't be happier that it's in Minneapolis."
West Monroe arrived in the Twin Cities about six years ago and currently has around 50 employees, according to the Biz Journal.
As part of the acquisition, GoKart CEO Smithmier will join West Monroe as a senior director on the digital team. Meyer will serve as an Innovation fellow with West Monroe. In this position, Meyer will address emerging market issues and support clients in developing new market strategies.
"In West Monroe, we found a company that shares our values and entrepreneurial spirit, while also bringing a huge array of complementary skills to help scale the important work we do for category-leading clients," Smithmeir said in the release. "This gives our team immediate access to a national brand presence and 1,400 colleagues with deep industry knowledge and end-to-end digital skills, all of which will significantly amplify results for clients and present new opportunities for our people."
