Two of Canada’s Big Four accounting firms have recently acquired tech consulting and design firms based in British Columbia.
Deloitte Canada has acquired Striven, a boutique technology testing and quality engineering firm from Kelowna. Meanwhile, EY Canada has acquired Victoria-based digital design studio FreshWorks Studio.
Striven will join Deloitte’s consulting practice in Canada in the systems engineering offering. Deloitte noted that it has worked with Striven on a number of projects in the past.
Founded in 2014, Striven provides quality assurance, project management, and technology delivery services. Its practice areas include business transformation, lean agile delivery, project recovery, and technology modernization. Since inception, Striven said it has expanded to offer services in the Tier 1 telecommunications, government, retail, insurance, healthcare, and FinTech industries.
Striven claims that it serves 21 clients from the Fortune 500 list, in addition to the startups from Canada and the United States (US).
The Kelowna tech consulting firm represents the most recent addition to Deloitte’s growing list of subsidiaries. Last month, Deloitte acquired cloud consultancy firm AE Cloud Consultants to strengthen its presence in mid-market clients from Québec and bolster its offerings within the Oracle NetSuite practice.
Canadian companies that Deloitte has also acquired include: MDB Insight Inc., Ouest Business Solutions, Dataperformers Company Inc., Clockwork Inc., Groundswell Group Inc., The Working Group Inc., and Isaac Reputation Group Inc.
RELATED: Deloitte Canada acquires Ouest Business Solutions to bolster Western Canadian presence
EY acquired FreshWorks to expand the digital strategy, design, and development capabilities of its EY Design Studio.
Co-founded by Sam Mod and Rohit Boolchandani in 2016, FreshWorks specializes in designing and developing mobile and web applications. The tech consulting firm works with healthcare, government, startups, and enterprises to build apps.
FreshWorks said that it has built over 100 mobile and web products, including the BC Vaccine Card Verifier, Critical Worker Benefits, Espri (for Telus Health), Foundry BC, BC Registries and Online Services, as well as SEISM (Invasives BC).
As a result of its acquisition, all of FreshWorks’ over 100 employees will join EY. Mod and Boolchandani will assume the roles of partners and will be working on the EY Design Studio team.
The EY Design Studio is a specialized team within EY that brings together design, art, and technology to develop digital products for businesses. It has locations in New York, Charlotte, Portland, Philadelphia, Canada, Mexico, Colombia, Brazil, and Argentina.
Over the next several months, the FreshWorks brand will be eliminated and integrated into the EY Design Studio.
With teams in over 150 countries, EY provides tech-enables across assurance, consulting, law, strategy, tax and transactions services. Most recently, EY also acquired Gensquared Inc. for an undisclosed amount.
Image source Pixabay.
