Taborda Solutions and Enterprise Networking Solutions (ENS) are being purchased by Fulcrum Technology Group, a global technology investor in IT infrastructure and cloud-based solutions. Terms of the acquisition were not disclosed.
Jeff Smith, founder and president of Taborda, told Techwire on Friday that he will serve as president of the combined company. Paul Smitham, president and chief executive of ENS, will remain in a consulting role for a period as he pursues other ventures.
“ENS and Taborda customers and partners can continue to expect the same great services from us that we have always provided and will continue working with the same people they have always worked with,” Smith said. “An additional benefit is that we will be able to give our customers the reassurance of being backed by the resources of a larger enterprise with an ever-growing set of offerings. This is a tremendous opportunity for all of us.”
A statement issued Friday by Taborda said: “Being a part of the Fulcrum family will provide both Taborda and ENS with increased geographic reach and access to additional sales channels, thanks to IT deployments managed by, and customer relationships with, other Fulcrum companies. This acquisition puts both ENS and Taborda in significantly stronger positions moving forward.”
ENS, founded in 1999, “specializes in the development and deployment of scalable solutions that maximize customers’ IT investments and align to their business goals,” the statement says.
And Taborda, founded in 2006, “has extensive experience blending people, processes and technologies to solve the business challenges of customers and streamline their operations,” the company statement said. “Both companies share a vision of offering high-value products and services at competitive prices to contribute to the financial success of their customer base.”
Together, Taborda and ENS account for more than $100 million a year in business, most of it with state, local and education customers, Smith said. Both companies are growing, he said, and he expects to continue expanding staffing as well as sales.
Smith said he hadn’t been looking to sell Roseville-based Taborda when the opportunity arose to be acquired by Fulcrum.
“A couple of individuals who both knew ENS and Taborda separately reached out to us. … Taborda wasn’t really for sale. We had this group from Fulcrum approach us, we had some conversations, I really liked the individuals ¯ the culture. That was a big deal for us and for ENS. And they put together an offer that made a lot of sense for me and something similar for Paul. … We both have stock in the new company, if you will.”
Smith said he plans to remain active in leading the new company in the coming years.
“I’m 50 years old and have no reason or desire to retire,” Smith said. “I plan to stay there for as long as they’ll have me, and I’m still having fun and the team likes me.”
His role will be president of Western Operations for Fulcrum, which is based in Canada. He said Fulcrum will probably move to acquire other technology companies, as well.
ENS, founded in 1999 and currently based in Rancho Cordova, will likely move its offices to Taborda’s facility in Roseville. Smith said that because most people with both companies have been working remotely since the COVID-19 pandemic began last March, that won’t be a huge shift.
ENS and Taborda have little overlap and don’t really compete with one another, he said, so the marriage of the two will give the resulting enterprise a bigger, more comprehensive offering of products and services.
“In the last few years, both our companies have been growing quite a bit, both from a revenue and a people perspective and offerings, and this just helps us inject capital, inject corporate experience from other folks, both here locally in this market as well as to grow across the U.S.”
As part of that planned growth, Smith expects to do more traveling.
“We’ve got a hiring plan to grow both locally here in Sacramento as well in other state markets.”
The combined Taborda/ENS, Smith said, “will continue to focus on providing exceptional resale value across a variety of technologies and stay centered around workflow and digital automation, security, ITSM, network, cloud and infrastructure. While the combined company will maintain their current foci, they will generate strong synergy across their complimentary disciplines allowing them to build MSP and MSSP offerings in the cloud, storage and security space for their customers.”
Smith said both Taborda and ENS were “pretty lean companies” before the acquisition, so there’s little danger of layoffs due to redundancy in operations.
