Nobody does government contracting like D.C. does.
Most of the region's biggest tech employers, like Booz Allen Hamilton, General Dynamics and CSRA, focus on federal projects. As more technology is used to complete those federal agency projects, the area's big tech contractors are bringing expertise in-house through acquisitions.
January was filled with tech consolidation, mostly fueled by tech contractors combining forces to offer more expansive services and land those big-time contracts.
SAIC has largely led the D.C. region's consolidation wave in this department, and CEO Tony Moraco recently spoke with Washington Technology on the company's M&A philosophy and how he looks for "extra value" in acquisition targets.
Here are January's tech mergers and acquisitions in the metro area:
Government Services
Tysons-based IT consulting provider DXC Technology announced that it plans to acquire publicly held Luxoft Holding Inc. in a roughly $2 billion deal. Luxoft, an IT services and digital strategy company based in New York, has 13,000 employees and will continue operating as a separate brand. The deal is expected to close by June 2019 and will expand DXC's digital offerings to the financial and automotive sectors.
Arlington-based government contracting behemoth CACI International agreed to acquire Herndon's LGS Innovations for $750 million in a deal that extends its reach to the signals intelligence and cybersecurity markets. CACI also recently acquired Mastodon design, a cybersecurity product manufacturer.
Herndon-based enterprise software company MicroPact is being acquired by Texas IT firm Tyler Technologies in a $185 million, all-cash deal. Tyler bought the 22-year-old company from D.C. private equity group Arlington Capital Partners, which merged MicroPact with Iron Data Solutions in 2015. The deal will supply Tyler with $70 million in revenue and 350 public-sector clients.
CompTIA, one of the world's largest IT industry associations, merged with D.C.-based Public Technology Institute in an effort to increase collaboration between government and private tech stakeholders. PTI, which deploys tech at county and city levels, stands to benefit from CompTIA's public sector and certification resources. The merger brings 14 new members to CompTIA's PSA program, including Nutanix, Motorola, Panasonic, Qualtrics and Symantec.
Technology
Reston software startup GoCanvas, which makes mobile-friendly web forms for businesses, was acquired by private equity firm K1 Investment Management for more than $100 million. The deal gives the Los Angeles-based group majority ownership and leaves in some investors, including founder and CEO James Quigley and founding investor and former NFL star Kurt Warner. Quigley plans to grow from 165 employees to more than 300 following the investment, mostly at the company’s Reston Town Center headquarters.
Gaithersburg, Md.-based Xometry, an online marketplace for custom manufacturing, launched its Xometry Supplies program, which will provide materials, tools and supplies to its 2.5K manufacturing partners when they accept jobs. To do so, the startup acquired Machine Tool & Supply of Jackson, Tenn., and established a logistics hub in Lexington, Ky., to drive the go-to-market effort for industrial supplies.
Five-year-old Herndon edtech startup Real Time Cases has merged with Florida learning asset delivery company Elearis to form Curator Solutions. The new company is a content creation, curation and publishing platform aimed to help educators save time and increase productivity in the launch of lessons and courses. It will be based in Herndon, where Real Time Cases moved from D.C. last year.
Alexandria-based private equity firm Columbia Capital bought a majority interest in CPG, an Ashburn, Va.-based data center company. Columbia Capital then merged it with Atlanta-based Canara. The new company keeps the CPG name and its Ashburn HQ.
Reston-based Transaction Network Services is expanding into Brazil through the acquisition of mobile and IoT communications company Link Solutions Eireli. The acquisition gives TNS two new offices in Brazil, 65 new employees and a customer base that collectively uses over 500,000 Link-managed SIMs in the country.
IT investment firm SDC Capital Partners swooped in to acquire a majority stake in 6-year-old Summit Infrastructure Group, a Dulles, Va.-based dark fiber infrastructure provider for carriers, data center operators and content providers in Virginia. Financial terms weren't disclosed on the deal, which is expected to close in coming months.
Media
Digital news company Vox Media acquired The Coral Project, an open-source comment moderation platform with the Mozilla Foundation, for undisclosed terms. The Coral Project was founded in 2014 as a collaboration between The New York Times, The Washington Post, Mozilla and The Knight Foundation, and its platform Talk is used by 50 publishers in 12 countries. The Coral Project's six full-time employees will join the Vox Media Product team.
Longtime local PR agency and tech supporter SpeakerBox was acquired by D.C.-based digital marketing firm REQ in a multimillion-dollar deal. The move creates a combined firm with 80 employees and offices in D.C., Tysons, New York and Boston. REQ founder and CEO Tripp Donnelly told the WBJ the combined company will have more than $20 million in annual revenue and 150-plus clients, and will slowly phase out the SpeakerBox brand. It follows a national trend of mid-size digital marketing shops consolidating to broaden their expertise and avoid outsourcing platform-specific ad campaigns.
