Optiv Security Expands Into New England With Adaptive Communications Acquisition

In its third acquisition of the year, Optiv Security has completed the purchase of Portsmouth, N.H.-based Adaptive Communications.

Terms of the deal, revealed Thursday, were not disclosed.

While the company's other two acquisitions focused on adding technical capabilities for identity and access management and third-party risk assessment, the acquisition of Adaptive Communications is a geographical play to expand Optiv's consulting reach further in the New England market, according to Chris Scanlan, senior vice president of worldwide sales.

[Related: Optiv Security Acquires Third-Party Risk Application Company Evantix]

When Accuvant and FishNet Security merged into Optiv last year, the Northeast market was a gap in the combined companies' geographic reach, Scanlan said. He said it was a priority for Optiv, based in Denver, to establish a presence in that region, given the number of Fortune 500 companies based there.

With 18 years of business in the region and at No. 268 on the CRN 2015 Solution Provider 500 list, Adaptive Communications has strong, established customer relationships in the Northeast market, and little overlap with current Optiv customers, Scanlan said.

"This is a great opportunity for us to fast-track our interest in this area," Scanlan said. "To get into some of those intimate service offerings [in the region], you have to have trust with the customers. We just fast-tracked that ability with the stroke of a pen with this acquisition."

Scanlan also highlighted cultural synergies with Adaptive as a key reason Optiv chose to acquire the solution provider over other players in the region.

For Adaptive, President and Owner Steve Thorpe said, joining the Optiv team means a vastly expanded set of solutions and services to offer its current customer base. He said Adaptive had been looking for an opportunity like this to accelerate its growth for about a year. Optiv made the most sense, he said, from a capabilities and culture perspective.

"A big part of Adaptive's success over the years has been the relationships we've had with our customers and the feedback for our most strategic technologies and services," Thorpe said. "We know when we go back with the offerings from Optiv we can now provide, they will see a tremendous value in that and they will be very warmly received."

All 60 Adaptive employees will be joining Optiv as part of the acquisition, including Thorpe, who will serve as area vice president for the Atlantic coast region. Facilities will remain the same, but the company's back-office systems and sales methodologies will be folded into Optiv, Scanlan said. The company will be rebranded as Optiv Security.

"This is very much about growth," Scanlan said. "This is a growth play for us and not consolidation by any stretch. … We are looking to maximize on what Steve has done for the last 18 years and be a huge force multiplier, and with the enormity of Optiv behind his sellers, we feel that we can make a huge impact in a short amount of time with the customer base."

Scanlan said acquisition will continue to be a strategy for Optiv going forward, both with an eye to expanding its geography and to technology capabilities. Scanlan said there are two other geographies in particular that Optiv is looking to expand into, but didn't specify what those regions were.

"Both types of acquisitions will continue," Scanlan said.