Dive Brief:
- Coeo Solutions acquired NetWolves from medtech company Vaso Corporation, expanding Coeo’s managed network services capabilities and personnel, the companies announced Monday.
- According to the terms of the deal, Coeo paid a base price of $14.5 million, after Vaso bought NetWolves for $18 million in 2015 and booked a $4.64 million goodwill impairment against the NetWolves reporting unit in FY2025. Vaso has now completely exited the IT market, having sold its IT support and implementation division to Nanox last November.
- The acquisition strengthens Coeo’s relationships with Cisco and Fortinet, which it uses as underlying providers for its networking services. “We're bringing in a proven team, people that have done a phenomenal job of managing and supporting that [Vaso] customer case,” Coeo CRO Jim Glackin told Channel Dive.
Dive Insight:
Coeo’s acquisition of NetWolves resurrects a vendor that was largely absent from the tech services distributor channel for years.
When Vaso acquired the managed network provider a decade ago, the healthcare software company focused on supporting existing Vaso and NetWolves customers and deprioritized going to market with agents for new customers, according to Glackin. Because NetWolves lacked its own unified communications product, it signed up as an agent with TSDs to broker UC offerings into its client base.
Now, NetWolves folds into a firm in Coeo that offers its own UC and voice platforms and is intent on growing as a supplier to channel partners. An investment from private equity firm Riata Capital helped Coeo acquire S-Net Communications in May and now NetWolves. Glackin said he is currently constructing a new TSD contract that will grandfather in and sunset the NetWolves and S-Net contracts.
“We're an incredibly channel-focused, channel-friendly company,” Glackin said. “We want to develop a contract that mirrors that.”
Janet Schijns, CEO of consultancy firm JS Group, which works with Coeo, said partners need “broader reach, greater choice, and faster access to innovative network solutions” in the age of AI.
“This acquisition strengthens COEO’s ability to deliver all three,” Schijns said. “A network of more than 1,000 carrier relationships isn’t just an infrastructure advantage; it’s a partner game winning experience.”
Adding competency in Fortinet and Cisco is important for Coeo, which to date has used Versa Networks as the underlying OEM vendor for the majority of its software-defined wide area networking and secure access service edge deals.
“Versa is a great product, but there's a lot of demand in the channel for Fortinet and Cisco,” Glackin said.
But having a service based on those vendors is only half the battle. You have to staff it.
“You've got to have the team behind it that has the experience and the skills. Your project managers, the engineers — all that,” Glackin said. “With this acquisition, we pick up not only the offerings, but skilled, proven people that know how to run it.
Coeo partner GTS cheered the move.
"GTS has watched Coeo grow deliberately, and the NetWolves acquisition fits that pattern,” GTS CEO Mark Stackpoole said in an email statement to Channel Dive. “It's not just more scale; it's more depth for our partner community to work with. That consistency is what keeps us recommending Coeo."
