Three Is Better Than Two: Reliam Merges With Second AWS MSP In Big Bet On AWS

In its second merger in two months, AWS MSP Reliam LLC has come together with G2 Tech Group, a Boston-based AWS Advanced Consulting Partner to deepen its AWS technical expertise and bring cloud consulting and managed services to a much larger geographical footprint.

Reliam, based in Los Angeles, acquired Stratalux, a born-in-the-cloud MSP focused exclusively on AWS in April with the help of Boston-based private equity firm Great Hill Partners. The firm has once again helped Reliam combine with a fellow AWS MSP, G2 Tech Group, and the three companies will form a single business with deeper AWS technical proficiencies and 80 AWS certifications, Reliam CEO Simon Anderson told CRN. Financial terms of the deal were not disclosed.

Great Hill Partners made an initial investment in Reliam in November 2017, and the firm has since committed $75 million to put towards acquisitions. The three combined companies will emerge under a new brand later this year, and each of the founders of Reliam, Stratalux, and G2 Tech Group will have an ownership stake in the new company, Anderson said.

[Related: Two AWS MSP Partners, Reliam And Stratalux, Merge To Bring Public Cloud Consulting To A Wider Market]

Coming together with fellow AWS MSPs will help Reliam double down on its partnership with AWS because it will be able to scale more easily, offer more specialized services to customers, and even assist AWS with its sales efforts, Anderson said.

"AWS is definitely looking for partners that have stability and can invest with them," he said. "One of the challenges AWS is running into, I think, is their sales and marketing teams might be less experienced with all the services they offer, compared to partners like us that have teams that have been deploying apps to the cloud for years. We really are helping them by aligning our organization with theirs very closely."

Another motivating factor behind the deal is to help more customers adopt and ultimately run and manage their cloud services, especially as AWS continues to expand its portfolio of solutions.

"There's a number of choices customers have to make around which tools or services to use, and as customers choose AWS for more of their workloads and applications, they need expertise when it comes to securing, running, and managing their cloud [services and applications]," Anderson said. "With a partner like us and what we are building, these customers won't have to invest heavily in their own cloud business or building out a team."

G2 Tech Group specializes in DevOps, and has a focus on supporting customers in the healthcare and life sciences space, which will complement Reliam and Stratalux's focus on supporting media and entertainment customers, mobile gaming, digital media, marketing, ecommerce use cases. The acquisition of G2 Tech Group will also give the combined organization the ability to reach customers on the East Coast, Anderson said.

Following the close of the deal, Reliam, which has about 60 employees since its merger with Stratalux, will have about 87 total employees and 80 certifications across a range of AWS skills and disciplines across its solutions architects. The company will also have about 150 end customers.

"We're starting to get to a scale where we'll have more levels of automation and expertise for our clients," Anderson said.

While G2 Tech Group and Stratalux were AWS-exclusive MSPs, Reliam offers managed and consulting services for several public cloud providers, including AWS and Microsoft Azure. Relaim plans on continuing to grow both organically and inorganically, and will evaluate other AWS partners that will help the company expand its footprint and add more competencies.