GE Capital Provides $30M To Venture Technologies, Newly Formed Combination Of Three IT Solution Providers

GE Capital's Commercial Distribution Finance (CDF) business has provided Venture Technologies, a newly formed combination of three value-added IT resellers (VARs), with a $30 million senior secured working capital loan in order to support the company's expected growth. Venture Technologies was formed by the merger of GKR Systems, Inc. with Information Systems Consulting, Inc. of Denver, and the acquisition by GKR of Strategic Allied Technologies of Birmingham, AL. The newly formed company will operate from headquarters in Ridgeland, MS with a staff of 205 and an estimated $150 million in annual revenues. “Our goal was to combine three companies into a single, strong solutions provider, thereby augmenting our expertise and capabilities and expanding our geographic reach,” said Venture Technologies CFO Norman Katool. “GE Capital allows us to finance our business day-to-day and successfully move forward as one entity.” The company's merger and ongoing channel consolidation strategy is supported by FlatWorld Capital, a New York-based private equity group that specializes in funding and advising middle-market information technology (IT) firms. “In the IT marketplace, we're seeing these types of consolidations as system integrators broaden their solution set to include IT infrastructure and cloud services,” said Mike Marcolina, managing director of CDF. “As this continues, we're providing working capital financing, recognizing that access to liquidity is a key requirement for enabling growth.” CDF has provided inventory working capital financing to GKR since 1987.