Toronto-based Aptum Technologies has acquired Montreal’s CloudOps for an undisclosed amount in a deal that closed on January 5.
Aptum is a multi-cloud managed service provider. CloudOps describes itself as a cloud consulting managed services and software startup. Aptum said the acquisition will enable it to further deliver its multi-cloud solutions and services, which it claims it offers to clients in 43 countries.
“They have all the pieces we’re trying to build.”
– Susan Bowen, Aptum
Susan Bowen, CEO and president of Aptum, said that CloudOps’s products complete Aptum’s jigsaw puzzle. “They have all the pieces we’re trying to build.”
CloudOps’ leadership and employees will join Aptum with the former’s headquarters remaining in Montréal. Ian Rae, founder and CEO of CloudOps, joins Aptum’s executive team, leading CloudOps’ software business, while other units will be integrated into Aptum.
CloudOps offers Aptum product, talent, and capability, Bowen told BetaKit. At the same time, Aptum intends to keep the CloudOps brand alive, and will amplify that brand on a global scale through what it claims is its customer base of some 1,200 clients.
Combining the two businesses will open up new opportunities across multiple sectors in Canada, the US, and the United Kingdom, according to Aptum. The new sectors include technology and business services, media and communications, retail, financial services, manufacturing, energy and utilities, hospitality, education, transportation.
The entire CloudOps team of 60 or so employees are joining Aptum and will bring its headcount to around 300 people.
The two businesses had already worked together for the previous two years. CloudOps collaborated with Aptum to offer managed DevOps (combined software development and IT services) services together.
“We had worked with CloudOps for a number of years in supplier and partnership relationships, so when the opportunity presented itself to actually combine forces, I think it felt like a no-brainer for myself and Ian,” Bowen noted.
Aptum provides cloud platform engineering, or what Bowen described as the Lego blocks needed to put the cloud solutions together. She argued out that a lot of organisations lack that skill set. Besides putting the solutions together, the firm can also provide its ongoing service and management.
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Bowen said that four years ago Aptum set out to shift itself from a traditional telecommunications company, data centre, and connectivity business to a multi-cloud managed services business. The latter would help other businesses make the journey to the cloud, offer migration services, DevOps capability, and not just on a single platform, but on all the public clouds.
Aptum came into existence in 2019 when Cogeco Peer 1 rebranded itself after its parent company Cogeco Communications sold it to global investment firm, Digital Colony. Aptum sold its data centres for an undisclosed amount in 2021 to eStruxture.
For its part, CloudOps launched in 2005. The startup landed a couple of times on the Deloitte Technology Fast 50 list in 2014 and 2015.
Looking ahead, Bowen said that Aptum’s integration with CloudOps will provide both businesses with maximum potential in the marketplace. “I don’t think there’s many solution providers out there today that can truly do multi-cloud,” she concluded.