Verys, a Santa Ana-based software development and product engineering services firm co-founded in a coffee shop  nine years ago by Chris Antonius and Mike Zerkel, has been acquired by national tech consulting company West Monroe of Chicago.
Financial terms were undisclosed; West Monroe reported allocating some $250 million last month for acquisitions, and Verys is the first major deal the company has announced since.
Integration is expected to be complete early next year.
Verys was founded in 2012, and its client roster includes some of OC’s top tech-focused firms, including Blizzard Entertainment, Experian, and First American, as well with others with national stature like Vertafore, Option Care, and Royal Caribbean Cruise Lines, according to Zerkel.
“We design, build and support digital products for the largest corporations in America,” said Antonius, who is managing partner of what is now known as “Verys, a West Monroe company.”
“Our focus is solely on implementation of digital product strategies, changing business process, opening new revenue streams. That is all custom software development, much of it done here in Orange County,” Antonius told the Business Journal on Sept. 28, five days after the sale was announced.
220 Employees
Verys ranked No. 18 on this year’s list of largest software companies in OC by worker count. It has more than 220 employees, many of whom work remotely from “anywhere,” including 15% working from the central American nation of Costa Rica. As of a couple years ago, the fast-growing company reported revenue in excess of $20 million.
Antonius and Zerkel, who both previously worked at Aliso Viejo’s UST, will continue to run Verys as a unit of West Monroe.
Antonius says he would likely to see the 220 headcount multiply quickly as much as 10 times under the new ownership structure.
Verys is now part of the Chicago firm’s global product development platform, “which will significantly boost West Monroe’s ability to build and manage digital products for clients as it begins to globally source tech talent,” according to the Sept. 23 announcement.
New Opportunities
“If you want to change the game and get into new distribution methods, new revenue opportunities, cut price in new and extremely aggressive ways, to counter the market changing as quickly as it is, that work has to be done in an agile format with product and technology informing each other on a daily basis,” Antonius said.
He added: “That’s a lot discussion between business folks and tech folks. That’s what we specialize in.”
The Verys employee base covers a team of engineers, user experience designers, “DevOps” specialists and project managers who specialize in building software.
OC Commitment
Antonius said the company is “absolutely committed” to staying in Orange County, though “there could be changes to the specific location” for expansion.
Zerkel, who is now executive vice president, global product development at the newly acquired Verys, told the Business Journal that being part of West Monroe is a “tremendous opportunity for all of our associates.  We couldn’t be happier.”
Antonius previously was the Verys CEO and Zerkel was president.
Casey Foss, the chief marketing officer of West Monroe, said she believes Verys leaders “will help us evolve to be more competitive” and “bring that engineering experience that will let us scale our own execution.”
She told the Business Journal that the Verys link with Costa Rica “will help us test our ability to deploy near-shore teams to continue to grow and our ability to deliver products to scale.”Â
