IFS and Acumatica Living Together in the ERP Space

Photo Credit: Jon Reed, Diginomica

When does the relationship between two tech vendors look like a merger but is not actually a merger?

For all intents and purposes, that’s exactly what just happened with two players in the enterprise resource planning (ERP) industry. EQT Partners, a global private equity fund, recently finalized a deal to buy Acumatica. Although EQT already owns another ERP firm, Swedish-based Industrial and Financial Systems AB (IFS), it is not merging them. Rather, the two firms will work closely together, while remaining separate entities under the same EQT holding company. EQT’s Jonas Persson will serve as chairman of both companies, and IFS CEO Darren Roos (pictured above, on the right) will assume a seat on Acumatica’s board.

IFS may not have the name recognition of SAP, Oracle, or Microsoft, but at about 10,000 customers worldwide, IFS is much larger than Acumatica. It counts in its arsenal corporate giants such as Toyota, BMW, Pepsi, John Deere, and the largest container ship company in the world, Maersk.

It’s not that a merger was not on the table. EQT’s acquisition came after IFS considered buying Acumatica outright, Roos said recently at an analyst event. After carefully considering the situation, EQT decided that IFS and Acumatica are different enough that a different strategy was needed, to keep the two firms separate.

For its part, Seattle-based Acumatica has grown to more than 5,200 mostly small and midsize customers in 11 years. It is known for packaging its products into industry “editions.” Each edition marries Acumatica’s horizontal functionality (primarily financials, distribution, and customer management) with industry-specific modules, such as commerce, construction, manufacturing, field service, and distribution. Acumatica sells these editions through a network of value-added resellers (VARs).

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IFS and Acumatica Living Together in the ERP Space