Mike Casagrande and Mike Leonardi Join Cloud and Internet Infrastructure Platform as Partners
UPSTACK, a profitable, fast-growing platform that transforms the buying experience for businesses seeking cloud and internet infrastructure solutions, announced that it has acquired M2 Enterprise Group Inc. (M2), a telecommunications consulting firm specializing in unified communications and contact center services. Terms of the transaction were not disclosed.
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UPSTACK’s acquisition of M2 is part of the company’s strategy to accelerate the growth of its ground-breaking platform, which combines the industry’s leading advisors with advanced technology, support resources and data.
UPSTACK also announced last month an initial $50 million equity investment from Berkshire Partners, which will enable the company to continue to scale its platform through technology expansion and partner acquisitions.
As part of the agreement, M2 Co-founders Mike Casagrande and Mike Leonardi have joined UPSTACK as Partners and true equity stakeholders in one of the industry’s most innovative companies. They also serve as Advisors to enterprise business customers that are sourcing cloud, data center, network connectivity and unified communications through the UPSTACK platform.
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“On behalf of UPSTACK, I am proud to welcome Mike Casagrande and Mike Leonardi to the team,” said Christopher Trapp, CEO of UPSTACK. “Over the last three years we have been watching with admiration as M2 was recognized as Bridgepointe’s fastest growing agency. We’re excited to accelerate M2’s incredible momentum and leverage Mike and Mike’s colocation, unified communications, and contact center expertise as part of the UPSTACK platform.”
With more than 15 years of advisory experience, Casagrande’s IT and telecom expertise includes UCaaS and CCaaS, global networks, data center and cloud services for midmarket and enterprise organizations. Before co-founding M2 in 2018, Casagrande was an independent agent at Bridgepointe. Among his accolades, Casagrande is a three-time Bridgepointe President’s Club winner and a second-place 2020 earner in sales revenue.
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Leonardi brings more than 10 years of expertise building managed services and IT infrastructure businesses to UPSTACK. His unique end-to-end experience makes him a valued consultant to some of the largest companies in the world. Prior to co-founding M2 in 2018, Leonardi was an agent for Bridgepointe for three years, regional partner manager for colocation provider Peak 10 + ViaWest and a regional channel manager for UC provider Panterra. Recent achievements include 2018-2020 Bridgepointe Everest Club Winner, 2020 Top 3 Bridgepointe agent and 2020 Top 3 Vonage Sales Agent – West Region.
M2’s co-founders partnered with UPSTACK primarily as a strategy to manage the company’s growth. Within three years of its founding, M2 had more than 350 customers and was growing at 100-125 percent year over year.
“We knew that because we were growing so fast, we were either going to have to hire or team up to continue to deliver high-touch service to our clients and stave off churn,” said Leonardi. “We considered merging with other agents as a path forward, but ultimately, we chose UPSTACK, which presented an opportunity to enhance the positives of being an agent and relieve the negatives as well.”
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“UPSTACK enables us to offload some of the back-office and account management responsibilities while continuing to grow our business at a fast pace,” Casagrande explained. “Plus, we get the opportunity for a liquidity event unlike most agents, who must continue to sell or risk that their commissions will run out.”
M2’s customers also benefit from access to the UPSTACK platform, which includes the technology research and quoting tool as well as expert advisors across technologies.
“Instead of walking away from deals, we can tap into the UPSTACK Advisors’ expertise to help our customers with any cloud or IT infrastructure requirement,” said Leonardi. “That helps our clients and increases our value as their trusted advisors. Plus, we’re able to leverage our expertise with clients of other UPSTACK Advisors.”
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