In recent months, as Beloit Solutions Group sized up the challenge of scaling, the Overland Park, Kan.-based Google Apps partner came to a realization. “We were going to have some scale issues,” Beloit co-founder Tim Lockyear (left, photo from pipelineentrepreneurs.com) said by phone Wednesday, “and some gaps that were going to be a little difficult for us to compete in the market.”
Not any longer. Cloud Sherpas, another Google Apps partner based in Atlanta, announced on Monday it has acquired Beloit. Terms of the deal were not disclosed. In Cloud Sherpas, Beloit’s three-man team is joining forces with a dominant player in the Google Apps market and one that Lockyear said is poised to continue climbing.
“I think the really important thing for us was the ability to keep doing what we’re doing, keep doing it here, but have access to a tremendous amount of resources,” Lockyear said. “I think the one thing that kind of stands out to me … was all the things we wanted to do enable future growth, Cloud Sherpas already has in place.”
Cloud Sherpas last month acquired San Francisco-based Omnetic to establish a stronger West Coast presence and, in doing so, gained the largest concentration of Google Apps deployment specialists of any company outside of Google. The acquisition of Beloit helps shore up Cloud Sherpas’ position in the Midwest.
Thanks to our sponsor
“This is a great move for Cloud Sherpas that fits perfectly into our strategy to grow the business organically and through acquisition,” Jon Hallett, CEO of Cloud Sherpas, said in a release. “Beloit gives us top sales and IT management talent, more Google Apps Certified Deployment Specialists, fantastic customers and thousands of additional managed Google Apps seats.”
Beloit, founded in 2006 by Lockyear and Mike Thiessen, found its footing when it shifted its focus to working with Google Apps. Beloit, which rounded out its team with the addition of Daryl Moore, was self-funded from the start. The startup accumulated tens of thousands of Google Apps users in the Midwest and nationally after joining the Google Apps partner program. Its top customers include Cosentino’s Food Stores and the Midwest Air Traffic Control Systems.
“This is a great transaction for Beloit’s founders and investors, and a big win for our customers,” Thiessen said in a release. “Beloit clients in the Midwest and nationally will benefit from the support of a larger and deeper organization, with even more experience helping companies of all sizes use and succeed with Google Apps. We’re very proud to have served so many terrific companies. But the time is right to align with a firm that we believe will be the major Google Apps reseller and solution provider for many years to come.”
Lockyear is currently participating in the PIPELINE entrepreneurship immersion program. Lockyear said the program’s influence on Beloit’s exit, his first, was “priceless,” and he’s quick to credit lessons learned and relationships established through PIPELINE with helping prepare him for the acquisition.
“The timing of the PIPELINE fellowship was really critical,” Lockyear said, “because I feel like I would’ve gone through this process of evaluating our position in the market and evaluating the relationship with Cloud Sherpas really kind of blind because I had never been through that before.”
For Lockyear’s recent interview with PIPELINE president and CEO Joni Cobb, which includes Lockyear’s take on Cloud Sherpas’ acquisition of Beloit, see the video below.
