Ahead Strengthens Networking, Cloud Muscle With vCore Buy

‘Together, we’ll better meet the end-to-end needs of our enterprise clients and help them accelerate their transformations to more agile and innovative cloud-native businesses,’ says Daniel Adamany, founder and CEO of Ahead.

Ahead has acquired vCore Technology Partners to enhance its networking, cloud and data protection portfolio and capture more than $2 billion in gross revenue.

Financial terms of the acquisition were not disclosed. CRN has reached out to both Ahead and vCore for comment.

The acquisition helps the company expand to more than 1,300 employees, 800 of which are in engineering or client service roles, according to a statement provided by Chicago-based Ahead. The combined Ahead-vCore operations will derive more than $200 million of its revenue from professional and managed services. Ahead ranked No. 28 on CRN’s 2021 Solution Provider 500 list. The digital platform provider has acquired or merged with a total of eight companies in the last three years. The company was also ranked third on CRN’s 2021 Fast Growth 150 Company list, generating growth of 535 percent between 2018 and 2020.

As a provider of enterprise cloud services, the addition of vCORE solidifies Ahead’s position as a premier provider of digital business platforms in the United States, said Daniel Adamany, founder and CEO of Ahead, in a statement.

“Together, we’ll better meet the end-to-end needs of our enterprise clients and help them accelerate their transformations to more agile and innovative cloud-native businesses,” Adamany said in a statement.

Scottsdale, Arizona-based vCore expands Ahead’s presence across five states in the western U.S., including Arizona, Nevada, Colorado, California, and Hawaii. vCORE will deepen Ahead’s service offerings, including robust managed services, and bolster its market leadership in digital business infrastructure.

vCORE provides customized IT solutions and services for more than 100 companies across the U.S. and Canada. vCORE ranked 184 on CRN’s 2021 Solution Provider 500 list. The company also made the Elite 150 category this year.

vCore is a premier Cisco partner, a Titanium Dell partner, a Silver HPE partner, a registered AWS partner, and a Principal VMware partner, according to the 2021 CRN Tech Elite 250. That complements Ahead’s expertise in the cloud as an AWS and Cisco Premier Partner, a Titanium Dell Partner, and a Principal VMware partner, according to the Tech Elite 250. In a November 2021 interview with CRN, Stephen Ayoub, Ahead president, said the company would continue its bullish acquisition strategy in 2022, especially around services and geographic scale.

The company had two blockbuster acquisitions in 2020 including, RoundTower Technologies and Kovarus. The solution provider also merged with Data Blue, Sovereign Systems, Link and Platform Consulting in 2019.

“Ahead will continue to do strategic acquisitions in 2022. And it remains a focus for us in our growth plans. We’re looking at add-on boutique service companies as well as some larger players to help us gain geographical footprint or strengthening in existing markets,” Ayoub told CRN in November 2021.