October 2026 brought another wave of mergers and acquisitions across the IT channel, with MSPs, cybersecurity vendors, distributors, and enterprise software providers pursuing deals to expand geographic reach and strengthen AI, cloud, and security capabilities.
Among the month’s largest announced transactions were Proofpoint’s $6.3 billion deal for Varonis and Dynatrace’s $915 million acquisition of Arize, while other deals highlighted continued consolidation among managed service providers and specialized technology distributors.
MSP acquisitions expand geographic reach and services
11:11 Systems acquires select IBM VMware Cloud Service Provider enterprise customers
11:11 Systems, a managed infrastructure solutions provider, has announced the acquisition of select IBM VMware Cloud Service Provider (CSP) enterprise customers.
The move will expand 11:11’s global reach across North America, EMEA, APAC, and South America, while expanding its ability to support complex enterprise migrations through an integrated portfolio of cloud infrastructure, connectivity, cyber resilience, and recovery services.
“Enterprises today are crossing the Rubicon into a new era of cloud, containers, and private AI, and the path forward requires both fortitude and practical guidance,” said Brett Diamond, CEO, 11:11 Systems.
“11:11 Systems was built for that role. With our resilient platform, deep VMware and cloud expertise and global reach, we help customers modernize on their terms, protect the applications, and data that matter most and make the infrastructure decisions today that turn into a competitive advantage in the future,” Diamond adds.
The acquisition will mark 11:11’s eighth purchase of a VMware CSP business and eleventh acquisition overall.
Acture Solutions acquires Digital Back Office
Acture Solutions, an MSP serving regulated end markets in the Northeast U.S., has made an agreement to acquire Digital Back Office, a Connecticut-based MSP and internet service provider serving K-12 municipalities, schools, and commercial clients across the Northeast.
The move is aimed at deepening Acture’s core capabilities, increasing market density, and advancing its strategy of building a specialized MSP in highly regulated industries.
Digital Back Office delivers mission-critical network infrastructure and connectivity solutions, including managed wide-area network (WAN) services, broadband access, cybersecurity, network design, monitoring, and IT support.
“Digital Back Office has built an outstanding reputation as a trusted technology partner to K-12 school districts and municipalities across Connecticut and beyond,” said Gabriel Stacy, CEO, Acture Solutions. “Their technical expertise, customer-first culture, and long-tenured relationships make them an exceptional fit for Acture.”
“Together, we’ll be able to offer our customers an even more comprehensive offering spanning network connectivity, managed IT, and cybersecurity solutions, while continuing to deliver the high-touch service we’re both known for,” Stacy adds.
Frontline Managed Services makes KL Software Technologies acquisition
Frontline Managed Services, a provider of advisory-led business and IT managed services for law firms, has announced the acquisition of KL Software Technologies, Inc., and its affiliate, KLoBot, Inc.
The move brings Frontline’s experience supporting law firm operations, technology, and business processes with KL Software’s expertise in Microsoft Cloud, software engineering, legal applications, and AI.
It also builds on the strategic partnership between Frontline and KL Software announced earlier this year.
“Frontline has spent four decades developing a deep understanding of how law firms operate and the technology and data that power their businesses,” said Tim Britt, CEO of Frontline Managed Services.
“By combining that knowledge with KL Software’s exceptional software engineering and AI expertise, we have an opportunity to do something much bigger than simply add new technology capabilities. We can help firms use their technology and data more intelligently to accelerate operations, improve performance, and ultimately drive better business results,” Britt continued.
Frontline clients will gain access to specialized Microsoft Cloud, application engineering, document management, and AI expertise to Frontline’s existing advisory and managed services relationship.
KL Software clients, meanwhile, will gain access to Frontline’s cybersecurity, infrastructure, Managed IT, strategic advisory, and business operations capabilities, as well as global delivery scale.
Evergreen acquires Dutch MSP Lantack
Evergreen’s Lyra Technology Group has acquired Lantack B.V., a Dutch MSP delivering comprehensive IT services to businesses across the Netherlands and internationally.
It will be Evergreen’s first investment in the Netherlands, expanding Lyra’s European footprint into the Benelux region and adding a mature, Microsoft-focused MSP serving businesses across the Netherlands and internationally.
“When I founded Lantack in 2008, my ambition was to bring the professionalism, structure, and reliability I knew from enterprise IT into the world of small and medium-sized businesses, without losing the personal connection that makes working with these organizations so rewarding,” said Lantack CEO Cliff Lagendijk.
“As Lantack has grown, I have always been determined to preserve that identity. What surprised me most during my conversations with Lyra and Evergreen was discovering how much of that same DNA exists within a group of this size,” Lagendijk added.
Climb Global Solutions acquires NeoVAD
Climb Global Solutions, Inc., a value-added global IT distributor, has acquired NeoVAD, a France-based value-added IT distributor focused on cybersecurity, cloud services, and virtualization.
“NeoVAD is a strong fit with our strategy to continue expanding Climb’s scale and capabilities across Europe,” said Climb CEO Dale Foster. “The acquisition adds meaningful reach in France while strengthening several important vendor relationships and creating opportunities to bring more of Climb’s portfolio to NeoVAD’s reseller network.”
“At the same time, NeoVAD’s established position in France can help us build greater depth with vendors including Cato Networks, DataCore, and Netwrix across our broader platform,” Foster adds.
NeoVAD’s presence in France will be an asset to Climb, with approximately 300 active resellers and vendor relationships.
“For more than a decade, we have built NeoVAD around a focused portfolio of cybersecurity, cloud, and virtualization solutions and a high-touch model designed to help resellers successfully bring those technologies to market,” said NeoVAD Founder and CEO Jérôme Boulon.
“Climb shares our focus on specialized, value-added distribution and brings broader scale and capabilities that can help us build on what we have established in France. We see significant opportunity to expand the solutions we bring to our reseller partners while creating additional opportunities for our vendors across Climb’s European platform.”
Cybersecurity M&A targets AI, identity and data protection
Proofpoint set to acquire Varonis for $6.3B
Proofpoint, a human-and-agent cybersecurity organization, has acquired Varonis Systems, Inc., a data and AI security company, for $6.3 billion.
“Today begins an exciting new chapter for Varonis and our customers. It’s a testament to the incredible work of the Varonis team over two decades,” said Yaki Faitelson, Varonis CEO, Co-Founder, and Chairman of the Board of Directors. “Our mission is to secure AI and the data that powers it. By joining forces with Proofpoint, we can achieve this mission faster than ever.”
Together, the combined company will serve over 16,000 enterprises and millions of organizations globally. They will deliver a unified platform that helps organizations adopt AI with confidence: finding and protecting sensitive data, controlling what people and AI can access, and stopping data loss.
“As AI becomes embedded across the enterprise, the data it can access determines both its value and its risk. AI agents are increasingly accessing sensitive information and taking action across systems, making it critical for organizations to understand not only what data needs protecting and who can access it, but how it is actually being used,” said Sumit Dhawan, CEO of Proofpoint.
Dynatrace makes $915M acquisition of Arize
Dynatrace has announced the acquisition of Arize, an AI observability and evaluation platform that delivers continual learning for agents.
Together, Arize’s AI evaluation capabilities and Dynatrace’s end-to-end observability will work to surface issues earlier and resolve them faster.
“As agents multiply across enterprises, the importance of observability has risen. Bringing evaluation and observability together closes the loop between building AI applications and running them reliably in production, giving teams the visibility they need to catch issues earlier and resolve them faster,” said Stephen Elliot, IDC Group VP for Software Development and IT Operations.
Arize’s capabilities will slowly integrate into Dynatrace, giving customers a unified AI observability experience.
CyberFOX acquires Optimize365
CyberFOX, a cybersecurity software provider, has acquired Optimize365, adding continuous Microsoft 365 (M365) tenant monitoring and hardening to its portfolio, which already covers privileged access management (PAM), password management, AI-powered DNS filtering, and Zero Trust Network Access (ZTNA).
The move will expand CyberFOX’s ability to help IT teams identify and address these risks across both endpoint and cloud environments.
“IT teams are facing an increasingly complex access attack surface, from endpoints and identities to Microsoft 365 and beyond,” said David Bellini, CEO of CyberFOX. “Our goal is to give them a comprehensive suite of security platforms that protects the full access attack surface, without adding more complexity.”
Optimize365 will continue to operate under the Optimize365 brand within the CyberFOX portfolio in the near term. Existing Optimize365 partners and customers will not see a disruption to service, support, or contracts. CyberFOX will integrate Optimize365 into its partner program and product roadmap in the coming quarters.
Infotech acquires Zluri
Infotech has acquired Zluri, a SaaS management and identity governance and administration provider.
The acquisition, along with the launch of Infotech’s API-driven advisory platform for IT leaders, marks a step toward expanding the company’s research and advisory model into a complete system that CIOs use to understand performance, manage risk and spend, and improve execution across IT.
“The launch of API-driven advisory through CIO Analytics, alongside the acquisition of Zluri, reflects where we believe the market is going, toward advice grounded in an organization’s own operating data, not solely in static inputs or generalized best practices,” said Joel McLean, Infotech Chairman and founder.
“We’re combining operational data, AI, and human expertise to inform the decisions IT leaders need to make now. And personally, I love what the Zluri team has built. I’m excited to welcome them to Infotech. As organizations enter and compete in the AI era, IT leaders need advice the legacy advisory firms simply are not willing or able to provide.”
AI and infrastructure acquisitions accelerate IT modernization
Rocket Software makes Geniez AI acquisition
Rocket Software, a modernization software provider, has acquired Geniez AI, a genAI company that augments mainframe professionals with expert AI agents operating directly on the mainframe in every domain, monitoring live systems, diagnosing incidents, and executing agentic workflows using natural language.
Geniez AI’s technical leadership and team will help accelerate Rocket’s AI initiatives, including new capabilities within Rocket EVA, the organization’s agentic AI platform for core systems.
The two organizations will seek to shift the industry from traditional, expertise-intensive mainframe management to intelligent, AI-assisted operations that make core systems easier to understand, manage, and modernize.
“This is about continuing to transform what is possible on the mainframe,” said Milan Shetti, president and CEO of Rocket Software. “By bringing Geniez AI’s specialized expertise into Rocket, we are accelerating our vision to help enterprises securely apply agentic AI to their systems with speed, confidence, and control.”
Boomi acquires Elementary Data
Boomi, a data activation company for AI, has acquired Elementary Data, a provider of a data observability solution that powers every workflow and AI agent with reliable data.
The move follows the acquisition of Lunar.dev by Boomi, enhancing the Boomi Enterprise Platform with the observability, quality, governance, and discovery capabilities enterprises need to deliver trusted data for AI.
“AI is only as trustworthy as the data behind it,” said Steve Lucas, Chairman and CEO of Boomi. “With Elementary, adopted by more than 1,500 data teams, with a ~4,000-member community, and downloaded over a million times a month, we’re adding the observability, quality, and governance layer that ensures the data activating our customers’ AI and agents is reliable, explainable, and enterprise-ready.”
Elementary will provide agent-driven pipeline, data, and context monitoring; column-level lineage, a data catalog, health scores, an MCP server that exposes data context to AI tools and agents, and AI agents that automate data testing, incident triage, governance, and performance optimization across apps, devices, and data.
“We started Elementary on a simple conviction: data teams deserved the same reliability tooling that software engineering teams have relied on for years. AI made that conviction urgent,” said Maayan Salom, CEO and Co-Founder of Elementary. “Joining Boomi, with 30,000+ customers and 800+ partners, lets us make trusted data the default for the AI era, not the exception. We’re just getting started.”
KORT Payments to acquire AptPay
KORT Payments, a specialized omnichannel payments provider, has acquired AptPay Inc., a Toronto-based payments technology company specializing in real-time payments and payment orchestration.
AptPay’s platform provides businesses with a single integration for moving money across multiple payment rails, including Mastercard Send, VISA Original Credit Transaction (OCT), Interac e-Transfer, Electronic Funds Transfer (EFT), Automated Clearing House (ACH), Real Time Payments (RTP), FedNow, and cross-border.
This acquisition will expand KORT’s capabilities beyond card acceptance to include account-to-account payments and disbursements, enabling customers to collect and send funds through a single provider and consolidated platform.
“Joining KORT strengthens our business by bringing together two teams with a shared vision and deep experience in building and scaling payments businesses,” said Shams Syed, CEO, AptPay. “That proven experience, combined with KORT’s platform and resources, puts us in a stronger position to accelerate AptPay’s growth. We’ll be able to scale faster, expand our reach across North America and beyond, and continue delivering the speed, reliability, and innovation our partners have come to expect from us.”
AptPay will operate as a division of KORT under the AptPay brand, and Syed will continue to lead the business unit.