Trace3 Acquires Tail Wind Informatics To Spearhead Data Strategy Consulting

‘By acquiring Tail Wind we just brought a bunch of smart technical people around data analytics. This will allow us to have more conversations and feed into this overall AI strategy that we’ll drive across the company because at the end of the day, we're trying to be a leader in this whole AI consultancy world.’ -Rich Fennessy, CEO of Trace3.

Trace3 has acquired Tail Wind Informatics to bolster its client services in data strategy consulting.

Minnetonka, Minn.-based Tail Wind will join Trace’s growing data and analytics business and help services customers in data strategy, data architecture, data platforming, data analytics, machine learning and automation.

“We see the topics of data, plus security, plus cloud, kind of converging,” Rich Fennessy, CEO of Irvine, Calif.-based solutions provider Trace3, told CRN. “The reality is a typical enterprise customer, but also a midmarket customer, in the past they may have thought of those topics vertically. The reality is they are integrating together.”

Fennessy (pictured) said customers now must think about their data strategy including where to keep their data and how to secure it.

[Related: Trace3 Plans To Hit $4 Billion In Revenue By 2026]

“We’re talking to customers and helping them build their strategies and plans,” he said. “We wanted to really double down on this. By acquiring Tail Wind, we just brought a bunch of smart technical people around data analytics. This will allow us to have more conversations and feed into this overall AI strategy that we’ll drive across the company because at the end of the day, we're trying to be a leader in this whole AI consultancy world.”

About 50 Tail Wind team members are coming over in the acquisition, more than doubling Trace3’s technical talent around data. Terms of the deal were not disclosed.

“To optimize for AI, our clients must first harness their data,” Fennessy said. “Then, empowered by data-driven decision making, AI and automation can create new opportunities for business growth and competitive advantage.”

To do that, he believes Trace3 must be “a great data company” and “a great security company” that knows how to manage hybrid cloud environments, “And with Tail Wind, I think it’s going to help us do that in a better way than we're doing it today.”

Tail Wind is the first pure services company Trace3 has acquired, which Fennessy said will help Trace3 move faster in the direction of data consultancy.

Cory Nelson, Tail Wind president and founder, said there is so much demand in the market for talented people in data services.

“Trace3 has built tremendous relationships with vendors like Microsoft, Snowflake and many others in the data and analytics space,” he told CRN. “These innovative companies are changing the digital world and we have relationships, expertise and accolades with them as well.

“I firmly believe that our combined data expertise, relationships with clients, national coverage and overall strength in innovation positions us to be the strongest data player in the industry,” he added.