Parsons on Monday said it has acquired Polaris Alpha in a deal that expands its mission solutions capabilities, builds on existing customer relationships and adds new customers.
Terms of the deal were not disclosed.
“The acquisition of Polaris Alpha is the latest transformative move for Parsons that takes our technology solutions strategy to a new level with customers needing advanced solutions to rapidly evolving threats,” Chuck Harrington, chairman and CEO of Parsons, said in a statement. “With the integration of Polaris Alpha into Parsons, we enhance our proven artificial intelligence and data analytics expertise with new technologies and solutions, the demand for which is growing exponentially.”
Carey Smith, president of Parson’s Federal business unit, said in a statement that the customers of both companies “will benefit from existing, complementary technologies and increased scale, enabling end-to-end solutions under our shared vision of rapid prototyping and agile development.” Separately, in an email response to query, she told Defense Daily that Polaris Alpha provides new capabilities such as multi-domain command and control, and space situational awareness.
Parsons, which is based in California, is an engineering, construction, defense and security company. The company significantly bolstered its technology solutions capabilities in defense and security with the 2011 acquisition of Sparta from Britain’s Cobham, a deal that at the time more than doubled its systems engineering and professional services work with the defense, security and intelligence communities (Defense Daily, Oct. 20, 2011).
Parsons said its capabilities in artificial intelligence, signals intelligence, and data analytics supporting defensive and offensive cyber security missions will be strengthened by Polaris Alpha’s capabilities in machine learning, data, video, multi-source analytics, and automated reasoning technologies.
Parsons also said the two companies share customer sets in the intelligence community, Defense Department agencies, including the Air Force Research Lab, Office of Naval Research, and the Missile Defense Agency, the Department of Homeland Security, NASA, the Justice Department, and other federal agencies. Polaris Alpha brings a number of new customers to Parsons, including U.S. Army organizations, the Joint Special Operations Command, and several combatant commands, Smith said.
Polaris Alpha was a portfolio company of Arlington Capital Partners, which created the company through a number of acquisitions of technology companies. Polaris Alpha has more than 1,300 employees, with nearly 90 percent holding security clearances.
Polaris Alpha, which is based in Maryland near the National Security Agency and U.S. Cyber Command, also has offices in Colorado, Virginia, other states, and the United Kingdom.
Michael Lustbader, a managing partner at Arlington Capital, said that “Polaris Alpha has grown rapidly both organically and through strategic acquisitions to become a recognized leader in the space and cyber domains.”
Parsons, which is a private company, had $3.1 billion in sales in 2017. The company has 14,000 employees.
Peter Cannito, Polaris Alpha’s CEO, and Jay Jesse, the company’s president, are staying on in senior management positions within Parsons Federal, Smith said. She also said that “many other Polaris Alpha senior managers are also joining Parsons.”
Cannito, in a statement, said that joining Parsons gives Polaris Alpha access to new markets, further bolsters its scale, and provides new opportunities for its employees.
Baird served as Parsons’ financial adviser on the deal.