NWN Carousel Acquires Federal Market Superstar, Crosses $1B Sales Mark
‘This deal is a big accelerant for the NWN platform, which is consistent with the approach we have taken over the last five years that has allowed us to quadruple the company from less than $300 million to more than $1 billion,’ says NWN Senior Vice President of Corporate Development Matt Curran.
NWN Carousel has captured a leading position in the fast-growing federal market and crossed the $1 billion revenue mark with the acquisition of Leverage Information Systems, one of the top Cisco Systems federal market partners in the country.
Seattle-based Leverage Information Systems, No. 380 on the 2024 CRN Solution Provider 500, has over 60 federal contracts with over 200 customers.
[Related: NWN Carousel Acquired By American Securities, Takes Aim At $100B AI Flexible Workspaces Market]
Leverage Information Systems recently broke into the top 10 Cisco federal partner rankings and has been Cisco’s No. 1 partner in the sciences market segment for seven consecutive years.
Among its key federal agency customers are the U.S. Navy, the Department of Energy and NASA.
The deal also expands NWN’s strategic footprint into the Pacific Northwest market and brings a number of top commercial accounts in that area to NWN.
NWN Senior Vice President of Corporate Development Matt Curran, who leads the company’s M&A team, said the blockbuster deal brings NWN’s highly regarded AI-powered Experience Management Platform (EMP) into the federal market.
“This deal is a big accelerant for the NWN platform, which is consistent with the approach we have taken over the last five years that has allowed us to quadruple the company from less than $300 million to more than $1 billion,” said Curran. “We are bringing on board a fast-growing top 10 Cisco federal partner to cross-sell our managed services. As for Leverage, this leapfrogs all the capital-intensive investments required to scale their business to capture the AI opportunity. It is truly a win-win with no real overlap for either company.”
The deal is a watershed moment for NWN CEO Jim Sullivan, who took the helm of the company five years ago with the aim of turning NWN into one of the top solution providers in the country.
When Sullivan took the CEO position, NWN’s Net Promoter Score, a universal measure for customer loyalty, has soared from the 50s to 74 in the most recent survey. At the same time, the employee NPS has more than doubled to 85.
Curran said the NWN team was impressed by Leverage Information Systems’ customer-centric culture, top technical talent and the leadership of co-founder and CEO Doug Chesler and co-founder and Executive Vice President Terry Woodruff, who are both joining NWN.
“This is a business that has been built right by the co-founders and aligns with our NWN vision, culture and strategic direction,” said Curran. “Both Doug and Terry are key to the success going forward. The folks there work for them. It is really important for us at NWN as entrepreneurs at scale that they are joining us. All of us came up that way. Those gentleman are going to have great careers with us.”
The deal provides a lot of synergy for both companies, said Curran. “The IT complexity that we have solved for our NWN enterprise and SLED customers with EMP and through the simplicity and automation that we provide are the exact same business challenges faced by the federal market,” he said. “Complexity has risen, data volumes have risen, and security remains a priority. What NWN has done with EMP has made IT manageable, proactive and strategic for businesses: SLED, commercial and now federal.”
The deals add a lot of high value, technical talent and contracts that are critical to success in the federal market, said Curran.
“This brings us a lot of seasoned talent with deep experience to join our senior team that already has deep experience, process and systems expertise,” he said. “We are going in arm and arm with Leverage into over 200 customers and over 60 federal contracts at scale. What we are going to do is bring our managed services offers to those vehicles.”
The NWN EMP platform directly addresses the challenges faced by federal agencies managing their entire IT estate, Curran said.
“These agencies are looking for the control and automation required to understand security, monitoring, management and hardware and software asset management,” he said. “We have already started bringing EMP into these federal contracts in response to what these customers are asking for.”
Curran said the NWN team is “incredibly grateful” for the partnership with American Securities, which made the Leverage Information Systems deal possible.
“For us to get a deal of this magnitude done so quickly after we finalized our partnership with American Securities is something the whole NWN team is really proud of,” he said. “The magnitude and significance of this deal can’t be overstated. We have gotten access to a new hot market with an entrenched partner. We have added new talented teammates in a geography we are not in today, and we are going to be bringing our managed services offerings that these customers are asking for.”
NWN is laser-focused on bringing together the two companies, said Curran. “Closing the deal is the starting point for us,” he said. “We are super focused on making sure we get the integration and early day successes right.”
As for the future M&A opportunities, Curran said there is no shortage of potential deals, given the NWN platform. “It is safe to say we are nowhere near done and there is a ton of opportunity for us,” he said. “This deal is a sign that good deals with good businesses get done. Quality rules.”