One Minneapolis-based Software Company Acquires Another
Two leaders in Minnesota’s tech ecosystem have become one. Tarmac.IO, a custom software development firm, on Thursday announced it has acquired the software engineering company Warecorp.
“The acquisition strengthens both companies’ position as trusted technology partners for Fortune 500 companies and innovative startups,” a release states, “with a combined customer base spanning health care, retail, education, and emerging AI technologies.”
Tarmac, founded in 2011, and Warecorp, founded in 2004, have merged to deliver data infrastructure solutions, AI integration, and custom software development. Together, their clients span more than 30 Minnesota companies, and the conjoined entity has dual operations in the Minneapolis area (Tarmac is in Shoreview). It employs nearly 370 engineers across the Americas and Europe.
“We’ve worked alongside each other, often serving the same customers,” Tarmac CEO Anthony Schmidt explains in the release, “and recognized that combining our strengths provides more powerful capabilities for our clients than we could achieve alone.”
The geographic scope for both has widened. Tarmac’s South American operations join Warecorp’s European engineering teams, “creating 24-hour development capabilities and expanded time-zone coverage.”
They also have pooled partnerships with major industry leaders, including Amazon Web Services and Nvidia. “Tarmac has some key partnerships, notably with Databricks, a data analytics platform that’s emerging as the leader in that field, and AWS,” Chris Dykstra, CEO of Warecorp, tells TCB. “Warecorp has our AI and data-science solutions advisory relationships with Nvidia and Microsoft. Together, we cover the gamut.”
Company leaders say the acquisition—with Tarmac about four times larger than Warecorp, Dykstra estimates—readies the businesses for “the next phase of technology evolution.” Namely, that’s regarding AI integration and data infrastructure.
“Essentially every company in existence is going to be faced with the question, ‘How should I use AI and machine learning in my business practices?’” Dykstra says.
For companies like Tarmac and Warecorp, customers “want to take the data that’s in their filing cabinet,” he continues—“it could be a piece of paper, it could be sitting on a decommissioned laptop, it could be sitting in a server”—and have it annotated and organized into “actionable” data.
Big companies sit on “inconceivable” amounts of data, he adds. Most isn’t actionable. As clients, Dykstra says, such businesses go through a “data improvement phase,” like sorting wheat from chaff. Per the release, “Rather than competing in the crowded AI model development space, the focus remains on unleashing the power of existing customer data through robust infrastructure and custom applications.”
Both leadership teams remain active in operations and strategy, with Dykstra noting, “We had some C-level folks transition off during the acquisition.”
