Synoptek LLC looks poised to become Orange County’s next tech company with sales topping $100 million this year.
Chief Executive Tim Britt isn’t stopping there.
Britt sees a “ton of opportunity” for information technology consulting and service providers like his company, which helps shepherd businesses safely into cloud computing while they make better use of resources.
Synoptek’s offerings—a combination of IT outsourcing, business systems, analytics, cloud computing and cybersecurity services—are “geared at the mid-market to Fortune 100,” Britt said.
“It’s a massive market. There’s a ton of opportunity for growth,” Britt said during a meeting this month at the company headquarters at the Google Center office complex along Jamboree Road.
“If we won 5% of the nine markets we’re in today, we would probably be a billion-dollar company.”
Along with Orange County, it has domestic locations in Sacramento, Boise, Denver, Chicago, Rochester, New York City, and Boston.
For this year, Britt is looking for revenue of about $105 million to $106 million, roughly 14% more than a year ago.
The company ranked No. 45 on the Business Journal’s list of fastest-growing private companies last year, reporting $93 million for the 12 months ended June 2018, a 45% gain from the same period two years earlier.
Its revenue has more than doubled from five years ago.
“We’re in an industry that is changing constantly,” Britt said. “The last four or five years, IT service providers have generally grown. The market’s gotten bigger.’’
Toba to Sverica
Britt, a member of the Business Journal’s 500 most influential executives in Orange County, co-founded Synoptek in 2001. He’s the former chief information officer for Ace Hardware Corp.’s online store.
One of Synoptek’s early investors was Newport Beach’s Toba Capital, which was founded by former Quest Software Chief Executive Vinny Smith. San Francisco-based private equity firm Sverica Capital Management LP took a majority stake in Synoptek in 2015 on undisclosed terms.
The privately owned company has about 800 employees, including a combined total of 59 in the Irvine office and remote in the Los Angeles/OC area.
It has nine offices in the U.S.: one in Canada and two in India. Plans call for adding 50 to 75 more people this year.
The company plans to add consultants, software engineers, software developers, and cybersecurity analysts. Some will come from a college hire program at the University of California-Irvine.
There are no immediate plans to go public, according to company officials.
Midmarket Focus
Synoptek currently has between 800 and 900 customers, with 300 core clients accounting for up to 90% of the revenue.
Marketing Vice President Michael Liwski said the midmarket is still “underserved’’ in the IT services area.
Britt says there are about six or seven companies directly competing with Synoptek.
In addition to handling midmarket companies, Synoptek also works with some large enterprises in specialized areas.
Head in the Clouds
As elsewhere, the key topics for the company today are growing cybersecurity threats and the cloud.
“What we’re telling all of our customers is that it’s all going to the cloud,” Britt said. “We’re making all the investments so that our skill sets are cloud-oriented, cybersecurity in the cloud, and helping our customers operate better there.”
When he runs across customers and potential customers without cybersecurity insurance, Britt advises them to “get it.”
“There’s two kinds of customers, the ones that know they’ve been breached and the ones that don’t,” he added with a laugh.
“We’re just trying to help them when it happens” to detect it and minimize the damage as fast as possible.
Consolidation of product lines under one umbrella is a key to the company’s success, he said.
“If I’m talking to a company that has 1,000 employees, they don’t want to have five different specialists,” he says. “We provide them a single, integrated approach.
“We do believe typically we can save a customer money,” said Britt, adding that many potential customers are stuck in old ways of thinking and working.
Indusa, IPO Talk
One growing component of the company’s work includes systems integration and due diligence involved in mergers and acquisitions, according to Britt.
The company has done its own share of due diligence of late; Synoptek a year ago acquired global technology company Indusa to bolster its position. Indusa had about 230 employees that were brought aboard in the deal, terms of which weren’t disclosed.
Prior to that, Synoptek in 2016 bought Earthlink Holdings Corp.’s IT business for $29 million.
No acquisitions are planned for this year.
Britt said there’s “always the question” about whether the company will go public, but he says it would be “too expensive” right now for a company the size of his.
“We have private investors. And maybe when we get to be a billion or something, we can afford to go public.”
He said in today’s environment going public would be “too expensive” for a company the size of his.
Synoptek Adds Trio of Directors
Synoptek has hired three new directors to support the company’s growth.
Drew Williams will serve as Synoptek’s chief information security officer and director of security services. He previously worked closely with technology teams to defend core business functions and define and balance risk tolerance at companies including Capgemini, Condition Zebra, and Lockheed Martin Corp.
Synoptek’s director of application development and business intelligence, Debbie Zelten, brings over a decade of experience as a senior technical project manager and IT business leader for companies such as AIM Specialty Health, West Monroe Partners, and NTT Data to her role.
Joey Lei is Synoptek’s director of service management. He has been tasked with establishing new techniques and service management processes. Before joining Synoptek, Lei was a senior adviser of product management for Enterprise Copy Data Management at Dell EMC—an early-stage brand launched to modernize operations.
“We recognize that the key to executing world-class performance is tied directly to our ability to engage the brightest, and most passionate employees we can find,” Chief Executive Tim Britt said in announcing the appointments on July 10. “We are grateful to welcome each of these results-oriented business leaders to our growing tribe and look forward to seeing what they achieve.”
