An Ottawa-based provider of managed IT services and senior care technology now has a presence from coast to coast after acquiring a Vancouver firm earlier this week.
CareWorx, a local company founded in 2006 that now employs about 185 people in eastern Canada and the United States, bought West Coast managed services firm Fully Managed Technology in a cash-and-stock deal that closed Monday. Financial terms were not released.
CareWorx CEO Mark Scott will remain chief executive of the newly combined firm. Fully Managed founder Chris Day will sit on the combined firm’s board of directors while the former CEO of the B.C. enterprise, Joel Abramson, will become executive vice-president and general manager of the merged entity’s managed services division.
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Scott said he’s known Day for almost a decade and called Fully Managed “one of the best-run managed service providers in North America.” He said the deal will help CareWorx grow its market base and expand its range of offerings.
CareWorx’s new partner has “a lot of expertise in digital transformation and cloud as well as managed security,” Scott told OBJ. “In terms of technology, that’s two pieces of technology that they’ve got a lot more strength than us and are really going to help enhance our business across the spectrum of who we service.”
Now known as CareWorx Fully Managed, the company will have 270 employees in the managed services, enterprise service management and senior care sectors, including about 70 in Ottawa. The combined operation will have more than 2,000 customers across North America.
Scott said both firms are leaders in the field of managed IT, which uses cloud-based software and remote monitoring technology to assist customers without requiring support workers to be physically on site.
“We can deliver pretty much the same experience for a client in Wichita, Kansas, as we can from somebody around the corner from us in Ottawa or Vancouver where we have a physical office,” he said.
Scott said CareWorx, which has about 10 employees who work from home in the United States, is also looking to bolster its presence south of the border with the addition of new offices in 2019.
Monday’s deal is the first for CareWorx since the company landed $17 million in venture capital funding from California-based Kayne Partners in March. At the time, Scott told OBJ part of the cash would go toward building up a “war chest” to help the firm expand its market share through mergers and acquisitions.
CareWorx was no stranger to M&As even before Monday’s agreement – the company is the result of a merger nearly three years ago between senior care provider CareWorx and Ottawa-based IT outfit TUC.
The company’s senior care technology includes touch-screen devices and mobile workstations that put patient records at nurses’ fingertips. CareWorx says its products and services are now used in more than 4,600 long-term care facilities across the continent.
Back in March, Scott told OBJ an aging population is opening up new opportunities to bring tech into the home as seniors strive to remain independent and stay out of care facilities for as long as possible. He said Wednesday the senior care division currently generates about a third of the company’s revenues, a share he predicted will grow in the years ahead.
“It’s still early days,” he said. “You’ve got the silver tsunami coming in terms of 11,000 people turn 65 every day in North America. We like that space and we’ll definitely continue to invest in it and grow. But it’s a little bit more of a longer-term horizon in terms of how we look at that market.”
