STORY HIGHLIGHTS
- Netrio and Success Computer Consulting have acquired Buffalo-based PCA Technology Group.
- PCA was founded by Steve Szubinski and Wayne Nelligan in 1989.
- Szubinski and Nelligan have contracts through 2025.
When Steve Szubinski and Wayne Nelligan started their company in 1989, exiting wasn’t part of the plan.
But as the co-founders grew PCA Technology Group, a Buffalo-based IT services firm, to a team of about 50 and doubled the company’s revenue, they began to think about retiring. A few years ago they started speaking with PCA’s leadership team about a succession plan.
That culminated in the acquisition of PCA by Texas-based Netrio and Minneapolis-based Success Computer Consulting, through L Squared Capital Partners, in November 2024.
The three tech businesses have rebranded using the Netrio name. L Squared is a long-term investment group.
“In the long run, I could see that us going with this Netrio brand and all these other companies that are going to come in under that — it’s just going to give so much more opportunity for our people here,” Nelligan said. “That’s what I wanted to give them.”
The acquisition has led to the expansion of service offerings and scale operations as PCA rebrands under the Netrio name.
Behind the scenes of the acquisition process
The M&A opportunity somewhat fell into PCA’s lap. Seven years ago, the company joined a peer group run by Ingram Micro, a technology partner with a B2B platform. Members of the group regularly gave updates on their respective companies, and in early 2024, PCA’s update mentioned the two co-founders eventually retiring.
Success Computer Consulting was part of that group and approached PCA about potentially being acquired by Netrio, the organization with which Success had recently joined forces.
Those conversations started in March 2024, and both parties went through the due diligence process.
“For years, this has been a very fragmented space,” said Mike Cromwell, chief revenue officer at Netrio. Customers “look for more from their managed service provider, and we have this interesting confluence of things coming together right now. … Scale enables you to deliver a better experience to your client.”
Those factors include rapidly advancing technology, security threats growing, a shortage of cybersecurity talent and businesses trying to boost efficiencies.
Combining entities made sense in terms of more opportunities growth employees’ growth, similar company cultures and scaling to bring customers more services. PCA specifically offers software development capabilities that Netrio and Success didn’t previously offer.
“I think it’s just a win-win, not only for all of our people and their career path, but also for our clients,” Szubinski said.
What does this mean for PCA in Buffalo?
While PCA is rebranding to the name Netrio, the company itself and its local office isn’t going anywhere. In fact, just the opposite. With work coming in from Success and Netrio clients as well, PCA is hiring.
“My biggest concern is hiring enough to keep up with demand,” Nelligan said. At this point, he’s looking for a few more software programmers, but that will grow as demand grows.
Some of PCA’s employees have been traveling to help with implementations in other parts of the U.S. Previously, many of the company’s clients were local. The acquisition also means PCA now has the scale to serve enterprise-level clients. It used to work with mainly small to mid-sized businesses.
Szubinski and Nelligan have employment contracts through the end of 2025, and they’ll work with Netrio to figure out what makes sense beyond that point.
“At the end of the day, if we can look back and look at the before state and after state and know that we helped clients reduce time, that’s incredible,” Nelligan said.
