Achieve One founder Mike Thomas
Six years ago, Mike Thomas took the leap to sell a majority stake of his company, Achieve One, to Canadian private equity firm Ardenton Capital.
The deal, which closed in 2018, was intended to give his Innsbrook-based IT company a big financial backing to go after acquisitions and build toward a long-term target of $250 million in annual revenue.
But for a variety of reasons, including the onset of the pandemic in 2020, that acquisition strategy never caught on.
“It really ran along very smoothly for a while and we had a few acquisition targets and then came this little thing called a global pandemic,” Thomas said.
The pandemic made deals harder to pull off and temporarily put a financial strain on Ardenton. Then in 2022 Ardenton brought in a new management team, which Thomas said had a different view on how to manage its portfolio companies, including Achieve One.
“They weren’t in a position to make those acquisitions that we wanted to make,” Thomas said.
That’s when Thomas saw his opening to regain control of the company he founded in 2010.
Earlier this year, after about 12 months of negotiations, he and a group from Achieve One’s management team bought the company back from Ardenton.
While the specific terms of the deal weren’t disclosed, the management group now owns 100 percent of Achieve One. Thomas owns a majority stake and other company managers also own a percentage.
The deal also has brought Thomas back into the fold full time. He had stepped back four years ago into a less hands-on consulting role during Ardenton’s ownership.
Now reinstalled as managing director, Thomas is ready to restart Achieve One’s growth plans, just on a smaller scale than what he had hoped for under private equity control.
“Now that we have it back, our goal is to continue with organic growth,” he said. “We just brought on a Northern Virginia team and we’re pushing into Carolina again, coupled with putting out feelers for a couple acquisitions.”
From its headquarters at 4470 Cox Road, Achieve One’s business mainly involves helping commercial clients move data systems back and forth from the cloud. Many of its clients are in the financial and healthcare sectors, Thomas said.
The company has 26 employees and is producing about $40 million in revenue annually.
In addition to its home state, the company is looking for growth in North Carolina, particularly Raleigh and Charlotte, as well as in the Dallas area of Texas, Thomas said.
He said he doesn’t expect the company to close any acquisitions this year, but moving forward it will target firms that are slightly smaller than Achieve One.
With a fresh start at the company he founded nearly 15 years ago, Thomas, a Mechanicsville native and Radford University grad, said the experience has lately reminded him at times of his early startup years.
“From the excitement perspective it does, but now that it’s mature it’s turning the knobs in the right direction,” he said.
Achieve One founder Mike Thomas
Six years ago, Mike Thomas took the leap to sell a majority stake of his company, Achieve One, to Canadian private equity firm Ardenton Capital.
The deal, which closed in 2018, was intended to give his Innsbrook-based IT company a big financial backing to go after acquisitions and build toward a long-term target of $250 million in annual revenue.
But for a variety of reasons, including the onset of the pandemic in 2020, that acquisition strategy never caught on.
“It really ran along very smoothly for a while and we had a few acquisition targets and then came this little thing called a global pandemic,” Thomas said.
The pandemic made deals harder to pull off and temporarily put a financial strain on Ardenton. Then in 2022 Ardenton brought in a new management team, which Thomas said had a different view on how to manage its portfolio companies, including Achieve One.
“They weren’t in a position to make those acquisitions that we wanted to make,” Thomas said.
That’s when Thomas saw his opening to regain control of the company he founded in 2010.
Earlier this year, after about 12 months of negotiations, he and a group from Achieve One’s management team bought the company back from Ardenton.
While the specific terms of the deal weren’t disclosed, the management group now owns 100 percent of Achieve One. Thomas owns a majority stake and other company managers also own a percentage.
The deal also has brought Thomas back into the fold full time. He had stepped back four years ago into a less hands-on consulting role during Ardenton’s ownership.
Now reinstalled as managing director, Thomas is ready to restart Achieve One’s growth plans, just on a smaller scale than what he had hoped for under private equity control.
“Now that we have it back, our goal is to continue with organic growth,” he said. “We just brought on a Northern Virginia team and we’re pushing into Carolina again, coupled with putting out feelers for a couple acquisitions.”
From its headquarters at 4470 Cox Road, Achieve One’s business mainly involves helping commercial clients move data systems back and forth from the cloud. Many of its clients are in the financial and healthcare sectors, Thomas said.
The company has 26 employees and is producing about $40 million in revenue annually.
In addition to its home state, the company is looking for growth in North Carolina, particularly Raleigh and Charlotte, as well as in the Dallas area of Texas, Thomas said.
He said he doesn’t expect the company to close any acquisitions this year, but moving forward it will target firms that are slightly smaller than Achieve One.
With a fresh start at the company he founded nearly 15 years ago, Thomas, a Mechanicsville native and Radford University grad, said the experience has lately reminded him at times of his early startup years.
“From the excitement perspective it does, but now that it’s mature it’s turning the knobs in the right direction,” he said.