‘We try to look at and do a couple of acquisitions a year. Our methodology and our philosophy is to look at geographical expansion and look at any capabilities that can augment our current capabilities. And obviously being able to pick up talent in today’s market is really important. If you look at those dimensions, Ivoxy gives us all of that,’ says Trace3 President Joe Quaglia.
Solution provider and technology consultant Trace3 this month acquired Ivoxy Consulting in a move to expand its Northwestern U.S. presence.
Trace3 President Joe Quaglia told CRN that Seattle-based Ivoxy brings his company an expanded geographic presence in a key market for Trace3, ranked No. 34 in the CRN 2025 Solution Provider 500 and recognized as one of the CRN Elite 150 MSPs.
“We try to look at and do a couple of acquisitions a year,” Quaglia (pictured above) said. “Our methodology and our philosophy is to look at geographical expansion and look at any capabilities that can augment our current capabilities. And obviously being able to pick up talent in today’s market is really important. If you look at those dimensions, Ivoxy gives us all of that.”
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The Pacific Northwest has been on Trace3’s radar for some time, Quaglia said.
“We waited until we found the right entry point,” he said. “We have quite a bit of business there already, but Ivoxy helps us double that presence in the Pacific Northwest. Ivoxy also has really amazing talented individuals and skills from the sales organization to the support organization to its engineers. So we now have boots on the ground in the Pacific Northwest that can leverage the Trace3 value proposition and our size and scale.”
Ivoxy is not a big acquisition in terms of size, but its client base and its Seattle and Portland, Ore. locations makes it a good match for Trace3’s West Coast operation which stretches from Southern California all the way up the coast, including Arizona, Nevada, Washington, and Oregon, he said.
Prior to the Ivoxy acquisition, Trace3 counted 700 engineers among its 1,500 employees, Quaglia said. He declined to say how many people from Ivoxy will join his company. He also declined to say how much Trace3 paid for Ivoxy.
Ivoxy, founded in 2006, was also attractive to Trace3 because of how similar the two companies’ approaches to clients were, Quaglia said.
“It’s a very consultative educational assessment approach where they bring competency and consulting at the front end of complex problems, and then architect solutions, implement the solutions, and manage the solutions,” he said. “It’s a very similar approach to Trace3’s approach. As you put two companies’ together, it becomes very important that the cultures mesh well. And it’s amazing to see the quality of talent that we’re able to pick up in the Pacific Northwest.”
Ivoxy’s client base, including large enterprises and midmarket businesses, is similar to that of Trace3, Quaglia said. A big part of Ivoxy’s business is also in SLED (state and local government and education, which was also true of Zivaro which Trace3 acquired in December, he said.
“Zivaro gave us more presence in Colorado from a commercial standpoint, but they also allowed us to stand up our first government vertical, and a big portion of that is SLED,” he said. “SLED fits really nicely into the Trace3 portfolio and into our go-to-market.”
Trace3 targets a couple of acquisitions every year, and so reached out to a lot of its partners, Quaglia said. The company had reached out to Ivoxy late 2024, but then the Zivaro acquisition interrupted talks, he said. Trace3 and Zivaro resumed discussions early this year, he said.
When asked if Trace3 has any other acquisitions lined up for 2025, Quaglia said the company is always looking at opportunities.
“We are looking whether they be small, tuck in opportunities that fill a specific niche or capability, or larger opportunities that actually give us more geographical presence,” he said. “We’re nationwide. We sell in every state, but there’s still a lot of white space out there for Trace3, and we’re always looking for ways to expand. But quite honestly, most of our growth comes through organic expansion, which is great.”
