MSP Integris Gets Community Bank Expertise With CalTech Acquisition

‘Integris has community banks as clients, but this vertical wasn’t a specialization of ours. ... This acquisition gives us the ability to scale the community bank vertical. We give CalTech the opportunity to deliver their community banking services to other regions,’ says Integris CEO Rashaad Bajwa.

Integris, a private equity-backed MSP focused on building a national services business, this week unveiled the acquisition of community bank managed services specialist CalTech.

Integris is a platform MSP. Platform MSPs are companies in which private equity or some other outside funding was used to acquire one MSP as a prelude to acquiring others to build a larger services business.

CalTech is Integris’ ninth MSP acquisition, and considering how those MSPs have acquired other smaller companies, now brings the total number of MSPs under the Integris name to between 14 and 20, said Rashaad Bajwa, CEO of the Austin, Texas-based company.

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CalTech is a specialist provider of managed services for community banks, primarily in Texas and surrounding states, Bajwa told CRN.

“Integris has community banks as clients, but this vertical wasn’t a specialization of ours,” he said. “CalTech is almost exclusively serving community banks. This acquisition gives us the ability to scale the community bank vertical. We give CalTech the opportunity to deliver their community banking services to other regions.”

Community banking is a highly regulated space, Bajwa said.

“But those banks need to compete with bigger regional banks,” he said. “They need best-in-class security and IT. CalTech is important for us to scale this business. The community banking sector is very large across many states. CalTech has a large footprint in Texas. In many states, there are few MSPs that understand the business and have the right skill sets.”

Integris was formed in 2020 when Frontenac, a Chicago-based private equity firm, acquired its first MSP, Domain Technology Partners, headed by Bajwa as CEO. Shortly thereafter, Domain acquired four other MSPs and in late 2021 rebranded itself as Integris, Bajwa said.

Nearly all the MSPs that now make up Integris, including CalTech, were part of either the ConnectWise Evolve or Service Leadership peer groups, which were combined early last year into one when ConnectWise acquired Service Leadership.

Arlen Sorenson, vice president of ecosystem evangelism at ConnectWise and former founder of HTG Peer Groups, now known as ConnectWise Evolve, and Paul Dippell, CEO of Service Leadership, are both on Integris’ board of directors.

“We met CalTech in the Service Leadership peer group,” Bajwa said. “We had a lot of mutual respect and common services offerings. We felt coming together would make us both stronger.”

Bajwa declined to be specific about Integris’ financials, although he said it is a healthy and profitable company with annual revenue of “well over $100 million, not quite $200 million.”

He also declined to discuss the purchase price of CalTech, but he did call it one of the most well-run companies he has ever come across.

Looking ahead, Bajwa said he expects Integris to make more acquisitions in 2023.

“We’ve always been particular about the quality of the companies we acquire,” he said. “We’ll be looking for well-run, quality companies to help grow Integris, with a focus on MSPs with good professional services and financial services.”

Joe Rondinelli, principal at Frontenac and also on the Integris board of directors, told CRN his company has studied the MSP space for three or four years and was part of the team that worked with Bajwa to acquire Integris as a platform MSP.

“Integris has a real focus on certain verticals, including business services and companies that are operationally mature,” Rondinelli said. “It also showed depth in its management team. Rashaad built a good team before bringing us in as a partner. And Integris aligned its acquisition strategy to grow its base.”

Frontenac worked with Integris on its acquisitions, including that of CalTech, Rondinelli said.

“We help with the financing, the transaction and the integration,” he said. “We effectively partner together to get the deals done.”

Integris in October expanded its managed security services capabilities with the acquisitions of Blue Jean Networks, a Fort Worth, Texas-based MSP, and Security7 Networks, a managed security services provider (MSSP) based in the Boston area.

Prior to that, Integris acquired Maryland-based Tier1 Technology Partners, Midwest-based Compudyne, Atlanta-based Providyn, Texas-based MyITPros, and Iconic IT with offices in Texas, New York, Colorado and Kansas.