The CEO of a fast-growing cybersecurity partner has opened on its maiden M&A move, saying it was easier to acquire a technical capability than to build it organically.
Mimecast and CrowdStrike partner Koncise Solutions today confirmed it has bought Spear Shield, boosting its headcount to nine.
Talking to IT Channel Oxygen, Koncise CEO and Founder Ben Konopinksi said the duo were first introduced by a contact at mutual vendor partner Egress (now KnowBe4).
“It seemed very logical from the sense of the client bases, the vendors and the skills,” he said.
“They have technical skills, and we don’t. We’ve got the account management, sales and back-office side, which Spear Shield didn’t have.
“Out of our combined 170-plus clients, only one client overlapped.”
Under the deal, Borehamwood-based Koncise has snapped up the shares of one of Ipswich-based Spear Shield’s co-founders, who was no longer actively involved in the business.
Spear Shield will rebrand under the Koncise banner in April.
“We always relied on third-party services”
Asked why Koncise opted against building a technical team in house, Konipinski acknowledged he “always struggled” with knowing where to start.
“None of us who started Koncise and who were involved prior to Spear Shield are technical,” he explained.
“If I [got] someone in, they’re just an employee – how do I know if they’re pulling the wool over my eyes if I don’t understand the technical intricacies?
“I always thought I’d be spending more time feeling them out than on the core focus.
“We’ve always relied on third-party services, whether vendor or distie provided, or by other contacts in the industry, but this gives us an opportunity to grow that from the inside out with people that have been involved since day one.”
Spear Shield Co-Founder and CEO Max Harper, who is one of two staff moving across alongside CTO Josh Broadbent, characterised Koncise as a “copy and paste” of his company.
“We’re not being swallowed up into a bigger entity where it’s very cookie cutter,” he told IT Channel Oxygen.
Koncise, which serves midmarket companies with 150 to 1,000 employees, is planning to bolster Harper’s technical team with three or four new hires, Konipinksi stressed.
“It gives us a base to grow that technical capability further, as well as all the other opportunities with the different vendors and solutions the combined business has,” he said.
While Koncise counts Mimecast, Egress/KnowBe4, CrowdStrike, Okta and Halycon among its key vendors, Spear Shield boasts allegiances with Sophos, N-able, Egress/KnowBe4, Abnormal and dope.security.
“From an MDR perspective, we’ve gone from having two offerings each to four between us, so clients can get a real choice,” Konipinski said.
“We have to seriously question it”
Asked about Koncise’s long-term ambitions, Konipinksi said it is important to balance growth with the company’s emphasis on work-life balance.
“A large number of the team here have kids,” he said.
“We like working hard, but we also like being able to get to the kids’ assemblies and sports days and the occasional pick up.
“We want to try and keep that ethos we’ve had from the beginning. That work-life balance is important to us all, and it’s important to our clients; a lot of them have that themselves and it’s something they can relate to.
“If running to 50 people meant we had to lose that, then we have to seriously question it.”
Doug Woodburn is editor of IT Channel Oxygen
