Diamond Municipal Solutions
Early in 2003, when Kelly Bolin received a call from Ernst & Young, indicating that a third party was interested in a strategic involvement with his company, he was intrigued as to what this opportunity provided. Kelly had been approached numerous times from various parties in the past; however, the chemistry didn’t fit well. As founder of Diamond Software, he had achieved tremendous success by adapting Great Plains, Microsoft’s accounting software, for the unique needs of small and mid-sized municipal clients. As Microsoft came closer to integrating Great Plains with its .NET technology, Kelly knew he needed significant capital to ensure his software could deliver on this technical advancement.
Partnered with John Jakobs and Gerry Grant (1997), they had grown the business to 98 clients and 33 staff members — a comfortable level, but Kelly knew that there was more potential in the marketplace for their software. To advance the software and meet the demand, his choices were to go to investment bankers, angel investors or other third-party financiers. But, these short term investors with high demands would eventually pull cash from the company and cripple future growth. This posed significant risk to his staff, his company and his customers.
With some skepticism, Kelly Bolin met with Ernst and Young’s client, StarDyne. After all, StarDyne had recently acquired Vadim Software, one of Diamond’s fierce competitors. After several meetings with David Burke, CEO of StarDyne, Kelly Bolin could see the potential. As a well financed company with broad-based management expertise, StarDyne had the resources needed to grow Diamond. And, as a long-term player, would act in the best interest of the company, protecting the interests of staff and clients alike. Kelly agreed to the acquisition which wascompleted in March 2003.
With StarDyne’s involvement, Diamond acquired CompuPower (2003), a software reseller to the Ontario municipal market that had a long established relationship with Diamond. This move solidified Diamond’s presence in Canada and added additional resources and depth to the company. Through StarDyne Technologies Inc., Diamond was also able to acquire WorkTech (2005), a relationship CompuPower had established. WorkTech provided work management software and implementation services to the public sector. This added a complementary product to Diamond’s portfolio and gave WorkTech the resources needed to revitalize a mature product.
Diamond has more than doubled in client and employee size. Kelly Bolin now works for StarDyne, putting his considerable experience to use assessing potential acquisitions and partnerships. He brings the unique perspective of someone who has been there.
