Ottawa company that makes software that helps police forces, fire departments and other public safety agencies manage their operations announced Thursday it reached an agreement to acquire fellow software firm CI Technologies.
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With the ink barely dry on Ottawa-based Versaterm Public Safety’s latest acquisition, CEO Warren Loomis admits he’s “kind of lost count” of the number of M&A deals the firm has closed over the past 24 months or so.
The answer is: a lot.
Versaterm – which makes software that helps police forces, fire departments and other public safety agencies manage their operations – announced Thursday it finalized an agreement to acquire fellow software firm CI Technologies. Terms of the transaction were not disclosed.
CI, which has offices in Vancouver and Amherst, N.H., is the ninth organization Versaterm has added to its stable of companies since the beginning of 2020.
In a public safety technology space that includes much larger competitors like Motorola and Taser manufacturer Axon Enterprise, Versaterm is carving a growing niche for itself.
Fuelled largely by its acquisition spree, the Ottawa firm’s revenues have risen 250 per cent in the past three years. Versaterm now employs 350 people, up from 115 in 2020, and the company has an additional 40 job openings it’s trying to fill.
“I keep reminding my board – I have products, I have market. What I’m missing is really good people,” Loomis says.
The firm’s longtime CEO says his company is on a mission to “smooth out workflows” for police officers, firefighters and other first responders.
“We have an opportunity to do something that’s really different in our space,” he says.
Versaterm’s signature software feeds information to officers in the field in real time – for example, informing them if a suspect has a criminal record or whether a particular address has been the subject of previous complaints.
But in the past couple of years, the firm has diversified its tech stack by acquiring other companies with capabilities that complement its offerings.
In January, for example, it bought a California firm whose products transform android phones into body cameras with real-time video and audio-streaming capabilities.
Now, with the acquisition of CI Technologies, Versaterm is bolstering its suite of what Loomis calls “professional standards” software that helps ensure first responders are doing their jobs properly.
Among other things, CI’s products help cops digitally document circumstances surrounding their use of weapons and high-speed pursuits of suspects. Founded in 1992, the 18-person company now serves more than 950 police forces, fire departments and other public safety organizations in Canada, the United States, Australia and New Zealand.
Many of those customers are new to Versaterm, expanding a user base that already includes half a million men and women in uniform.
While many other tech companies are retrenching and scaling back expectations amid the growing economic uncertainty and financial turmoil that’s gripping the sector, Loomis says Versaterm plans to keep pushing and could pull the trigger on more deals before the year is out.
“We’ve been very successful over the years in adding these companies into the fold, and the problems we’re solving resonate really well,” he explains. “We don’t have to tell people who we are. They know who we are, and they really understand what we’re doing.”
