MSP M&A: Nexus IT Acquires Intelitechs, Plans National Expansion

‘We now have an M&A pipeline of 25 companies. ... We want to make our brand more visible on the national stage,’ says Nexus IT founder and CEO Earl Foote.

Intelitechs co-founder Eric Sessions, Nexus IT founder and CEO Earl Foote and Intelitechs co-founder Jacob Hiller

Nexus IT Consultants Tuesday said it has acquired a fellow Salt Lake City area MSP, Intelitechs, and plans to use the acquisition as a step to building a national services presence.

The deal is actually more of a merger, said Earl Foote, founder and CEO of Nexus IT, a Park City, Utah-based MSP and MSSP.

“We’re bringing on two new talented operators and leaders to help lead our very aggressive five-year growth plan,” Foote told CRN. “They will be a big part of that, and we are bringing on their team to help.”

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Those “two new talented operators” to which Foote referred are the co-founders of Intelitechs, Eric Sessions and Jacob Hiller. Sessions is COO and Hiller is CFO.

Going forward, Sessions and Hiller will be considered co-founders with Foote of Nexus IT, Foote said.

Intelitechs is Nexus IT’s fifth “merger” in 12 years, Foote said. The first four were focused on acquiring other MSPs’ books of business and resulted in the hiring of just one engineer, he said. “This one, the fifth, is our first full integration,” he said.

Foote declined to talk about the financial aspect of Nexus IT’s merger with Intelitechs, other than to say it was done in part via a share swap. He also said both companies are very healthy financially, with EBITDA in the 20 percent to 30 percent range.

“We’ve combined two very good organizations to create a super organization,” he said.

Sessions told CRN that his company decided to combine with Nexus IT because his and Hiller’s visions were closely aligned with those of Foote.

“Foote and his company have a people-first mindset and are looking for ways to do things better in the IT landscape,” he said. “We both want to improve our products and services offerings, especially with the increased emphasis on security and the changing landscape with COVID. It makes sense to work together than to beat each other up.”

Hiller told CRN the combined company will have resources and a road map that will help form the base of a national MSP.

“We already have our own NOC [Network Operations Center],” he said. “We want to expand that with our combined resources and eventually add our own SOC [Security Operations Center] as well.”

Having its own SoC will provide the combined company improved customer insight, Hiller said.

“We’ll continue to work with our partners to expand our internal team capabilities,” he said. “But with our own SOC, we can better customize offerings to meet customer needs and meet their compliance requirements.”

Foote said Nexus IT wants to build a national MSP but declined to discuss potential external funding for that plan.

“We may have a story in the next couple of months,” he said.

Nexus IT is already building out the infrastructure for regional and national growth, Foote said.

“We now have an M&A pipeline of 25 companies,” he said. “We’ve brought in BriAnn Rachele as our new director of strategic growth. And we’re interested in organic growth strategies as well. We hired a marketing person to scale our reputation. We want to make our brand more visible on the national stage.”