Trillion Partners Set to Expand
March 10, 2006
Austin Business Journal
Giselle Greenwood
ggreenwood@bizjournals.com
Broadband network service provider Trillion Partners Inc. may not be growing a trillion times bigger, but it's working on it. The Austin company, which provides broadband network services to educational institutions, recently bought the assets of Trillion digital Communications Inc. for an undisclosed amount.
The purchase almost doubles Trillion Partner’s headcount, from 55 to about 100, and also increases the company's market to include all 50 states. Previously, Trillion Partners served 22 states, most of them west of the Mississippi River.
As part of the deal, Trillion Partners bought Trillion Digital's customer contracts and network infrastructure. Trillion Digital served most of the United States, but many of its customers were in the Southeast. The employees Trillion Partners absorbed are field personnel through out the country. The combined company will be based in Austin.
Bessemer, Alabama based Trillion Digital specialized in high-speed wireless connections for school districts and also attracted the eye of several investors, including Housatonic Partners, which has offices in Boston and San Francisco; Jemison Investment Co. Inc. of Birmingham, AL and BIA Digital Partners LP of Chantilly, VA.
Trillion Partners President and CEO Bear Poth says the purchase allows Trillion Partners to expand its customer and partnership bases. Trillion Partners plans to hire between 15 and 20 people in Austin and a total of 25 to 30 over the next six months. Positions will be in sales, engineering and network operations.
“We have a good company with a good value system and a great marketplace,” Poth says. “We continue to find that schools want to increase their broadband capacity, and we have the capabilities for that.”
Trillion Partners has built its business around providing secure broadband network services to the 1K-12 education marketplace. Customers include the Nederland Independent School District and the Bedford County Department of Education in Shelbyville, TN.
Trillion Partners’ investors include Hexagon Investments LLC of Denver; Intel Communications Fund, an affiliate of Intel Corp.; and Meritage Private Equity Funds of Denver. Intel Capital’s Carlos Kokron says Trillion Partners has a “unique vision.”
“The company is doing quite well,” Kokron says. “They’re serving a niche market and, with this acquisition, they have a national footprint and can offer all 50 states their services.”
According to research firm In-Stat, the education sector is slowly increasing its IT spending, with many states’ education budgets in “disarray.” As such, In-Stat says technology and telecommunications vendors targeting that sector must be creative with marketing, sales and branding.
