DMI COO: Acquisition Of Ambit Gives Company ‘A Client Set We’re Not In’

‘The SEC is their biggest client, and they’re in Homeland Security. DMI had a presence in these organizations before, but Ambit is giving us a major increase in presence,’ says Rocky Thurston, COO of the digital transformation services provider.

Rocky Thurston, COO of DMI

Digital transformation services provider DMI this week unveiled the acquisition of Ambit Group, a fellow MSP specializing in data analytics, cybersecurity, and mission support service to the U.S. government.

With Ambit, DMI is getting a high-end cloud development team with the ability to wrap everything for customers around the cloud, said Rocky Thurston, COO of Bethesda, Md.-based DMI.

“Ambit also provides high-end managed services and direct IT services, as well as integration to Oracle, SAP, telephony and other high-end systems,” Thurston told CRN.

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Ambit brings capabilities that complement those of DMI, Thurston said.

DMI is a global digital transformation professional services organization serving commercial, state and local government, and federal government customers, he said.

“We sit at the intersection of commercial, health care, transport, finance and the government,” he said. “This includes the regulators and the regulated.”

Ambit is a private company thats is about one-tenth the size of DMI, Thurston said.

“But Ambit is very symbiotic with us in terms of digital transformation and high-end analytics,” he said. “And they bring us a client set we’re not in. The SEC is their biggest client, and they’re in Homeland Security. DMI had a presence in these organizations before, but Ambit is giving us a major increase in presence.”

Thurston said he has been in the federal space for a long time and has known about Ambit, although DMI has not competed with it. “The timing was right to acquire it,” he said.

Thurston declined to discuss the cost of the acquisition. However, he said, the company was profitable. “We wouldn’t make an acquisition if not,” he said.

Ambit was run by two co-CEOs who jointly felt they had reached a point where they needed to give their employees better career opportunities, Thurston said.

One of the co-owners will remain with DMI as a strategic adviser, while the other will become DMI’s corporate development lead.

That latter position will be important going forward, Thurston said.

“We’ll be looking for more acquisitions, working closely with our private equity firm Ocean Sound,” he said. “Everything has to fit what we’re doing. That’s why we created the corporate development role. He’ll be in charge of future acquisitions. Watch out for more action from DMI. We’re a growing company. We want to afford all our employees the opportunity for growth.”

Ambit is DMI’s second acquisition in 12 months. The MSP in April acquired Aurotech, a Silver Springs, Md.-based government IT contractor and digital transformation services provider whose largest customer is the Food and Drug Administration.