Mergers and Acquisitions, Mergers and Acquisitions, Content, Private equity

IT Staffing M&A: The Planet Group Acquires Future State Consulting

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The Planet Group, backed by private equity firm Odyssey Investment Partners, has acquired Future State Consulting, a technology talent and consulting solutions firm. Financial terms of the deal were not disclosed.

This is technology M&A deal number 585 that ChannelE2E has covered so far in 2022. See more than 1,000 technology M&A deals involving MSPs, MSSPs & IT service providers listed here.

IT Staffing M&A: Business Backgrounds

The Planet Group, founded in 2009, is based in Deerfield, Illinois. The company has 1,344 employees listed on LinkedIn. The Planet Group’s areas of expertise include outsourced human capital solutions and niche consulting services for Fortune 500 and other clients in the technology, energy and engineering, healthcare, accounting and finance, HR, administrative and digital marketing industries.

Future State Consulting, founded in 2012, is based in Portland, Oregon. The company has 41 employees listed on LinkedIn. Future State’s areas of expertise include native mobile engineering, modern web application development, Scrum/Agile coaching, data engineering, cloud automation engineering and project/program/product management..

Future State will align with Strive Consulting and Launch Consulting Group, Planet’s technology consulting platforms specializing in digital transformation, digital strategy, data and analytics, technology enablement, cybersecurity and compliance and management consulting, according to the companies.

Tim Simmerly, president, The Planet Group
Tim Simmerly, president, The Planet Group
Harrison Bishop, managing director, Future State

Tim Simmerly, president of The Planet Group, commented on the news:

“Future State Consulting is a natural partner for us. Their industry leading capabilities in digital transformation are an important step forward in Planet’s technology consulting growth plan. Future State not only aligns with the firm’s technology expertise, it also matches with Planet’s culture that is driven by an entrepreneurial spirit. We are excited to welcome another industry-leading firm to our portfolio and believe the acquisition will magnify the strengths of both companies, allowing us to better service our clients together.”

Harrison Bishop, managing director of Future State, added:

"From the start, Dann and I built Future State to be people-first, and over the last 10 years this core value has driven our culture and incredible growth while creating an environment for our employees to provide unparalleled impact to our clients. As we look toward the next phase, we couldn’t be more excited. Joining The Planet Group has given us a partner that shares our same ideologies to the core. Planet has proven to be the gold standard for our industry, a bar-raiser that will afford great career opportunities to our internal employees, national reach for our consultants and a full suite of new services to our clients."

The Planet Group’s M&A Strategy

FutureState Consulting is the eighth technology firm that Planet has acquired since 2018 as part of its strategy to build out its technology offerings. The firm launched Planet Technology and previously acquired Launch Consulting Group, Strive Consulting, OmniPoint Staffing, I.T. Works Recruitment, Interactive Business Systems and WinterWyman.

Sharon Florentine

Sharon manages day-to-day content on ChannelE2E and serves as senior managing editor for CyberRisk Alliance’s Channel Brands. She also covers enterprise-class technology companies, strategic alliances and channel partner strategies. Sharon is a veteran tech journalist and editor with more than 25 years experience in the industry, and has previously held key editorial, content and leadership positions at Techstrong Group, CIO.com, Ziff Davis Enterprise and CRN.