Even in the midst of the coronavirus pandemic, tech sector merger and acquisition activity continues. In fact, notable M&A has taken place in Seattle.

General Microsystems Acquisitions

The Bellevue, Washington-based IT firm General Microsystems merged with two Phoenix-based IT firms in August: nVision Networking and Extreme Integration. This tech sector merger results in the formation of a new brand: Global Market Innovators (GMI). The new company will base its headquarters in Arizona with offices in Washington, Idaho, Costa Rica, and the Philippines.

Puget Sound Business Journal reported that General Microsystems is one of Washington’s largest minority-owned companies. In fact, the merger creates one of the largest women-owned and minority-owned IT companies in the United States.

Earl Overstreet, the founder and president of General Microsystems, will stay on as president of GMI, and Simer S. Mayo, the CEO of nVision, will retain the same title for the newly formed tech sector company.

The parties did not disclose the terms of the deal.

Tech Sector to Provide Anytime, Anywhere Access

“Our customers are facing the challenge of providing secure anytime, anywhere access to an expanding array of IT services and solutions in an increasingly complex environment, often with flat or declining budgets. There is an urgent need for our customers to leverage technology in ways that deliver significant value to our stakeholders. Likewise, the consequences of failing to provide and protect technology is substantial,” Overstreet said in a statement. “Trusted advisors have never been more important.”

General Microsystems opened its doors in 1983. It employs 22 people in Bellevue, Washington. GMI enjoyed almost $36 million in revenue last year, according research conducted by Puget Sound Business Journal.

NVision began its business in 1999. The tech sector company acquired the IT division of Valor Global in 2018 and relocated to Phoenix, Arizona. At the time, nVision had about 100 employees.

“We are genuinely excited about this new chapter for our organization,” Mayo said. “Our many combined years of industry knowledge will be used to develop customer-centric, comprehensive, vendor-neutral solutions that leverage best in class technology to solve pressing business challenges.”

OnSolve Acquires Tech Sector Startup Stabilitas

OnSolve acquired another Washington tech company, seven-year-old Seattle startup Stabilitas. Stabilitas provides intelligence about critical events like hurricanes, protests, and the pandemic. The company also powers the Amber Alert system for finding endangered and missing children.

Stabilitas combines crowdsourced expert knowledge with technology to alert customers of safety incidents.

A press release explains that Stabilitas’ artificial intelligence (AI) solution continuously receives over 17,000 global data sources to identify nearly 300,000 critical events daily, such as natural disasters and geopolitical incidents. It then identifies the people, facilities, assets, and operations affected by those events in real time. That data allows decision-makers to “effectively monitor and confidently respond to the multitude of natural and man-made incidents that endanger lives and pose billions of dollars in risk to organizations each year,” the release said.

OnSolve offers a similar tech sector product.

“Joining OnSolve was a natural fit because we are both focused on keeping people and organizations safe,” Stabilitas CEO Greg Adams said in a statement. “Stabilitas’ AI-powered critical event intelligence coupled with OnSolve’s leading global critical communications solutions will take critical event management to the next level.”

The parties did not disclose the details of this merger.

S4Capital Acquires Orca Pacific

The UK digital advertising and marketing services company S4Capital announced this summer that it had acquired another Seattle-based company, Orca Pacific, an advertising and digital services agency primarily focused on Amazon.

Orca Pacific was founded in 2008. It has been led by CEO John Ghiorso, EVP Sales & Marketing Kashif Zafar, and EVP Client Services Lisa Lockwood. The tech sector company provides marketing services to top consumer brands to help them optimize their customer experiences and increase their Amazon business.

Orca Pacific’s staff includes more than 40 former Amazon employees and retail industry experts working for clients that include Reebok, Uni-ball, OshKosh B’Gosh, Godiva, Del Monte, and Kenroy Home.

In addition to its command of Amazon’s A9 Algorithm and full suite of retail management and advertising products, Orca Pacific created a proprietary dashboard that helps Amazon sellers analyze sales ranking trends, identify content that drives purchases, track KPIs, and measure advertising performance.

The pandemic has increased the significance of digital maturity and eCommerce for retailers globally, and Orca Pacific is expanding its role in helping companies take control of the entire customer journey.