Accellos buys HighJump Software; deal merges IT leaders in omnichannel retailing

Accellos Inc. said today it has acquired HighJump Software Inc. for an undisclosed sum, merging two of the leading technology providers in the fast-growing omnichannel supply chain management sector.

The merged company will operate under the name HighJump, although it will use the Accellos brand for mid-market supply chain services. Michael Cornell, Accellos' co-founder and CEO, has been named CEO of the combined company. The merged entity has 11,000 customers operating in 23 countries.

Accellos, based in Colorado Springs, Colo., provides a broad range of IT services catering to third-party logistics providers and mid-sized businesses. High Jump, based in Minneapolis, serves mostly the upper end of the marketplace with warehouse management systems, networked electronic data interchange (EDI) and trading partner integration, and direct-store-delivery software services. Founded in 1983, HighJump started as a bar-code data collection solutions provider. It expanded into the warehouse management system (WMS) market in the early 2000s.

In a statement, Cornell said the merger will create a single-source technology provider for increasingly complex ordering, fulfillment, and distribution challenges. Changes in supply chain structures driven by new models of e-commerce are forcing businesses to re-evaluate their order fulfillment technologies. This, in turn, has led to an increase in revenue in WMS, a segment both companies are involved in.

"Discussions with our customers have made it clear that omnichannel is a catalyst for rethinking their supply chain and its underlying technology," Cornell said. "This combination brings extremely complementary technology to both Accellos and HighJump customers."

Accellos' WMS products are marketed to small to mid-size businesses, as well as to third party logistics providers that operate in the public warehousing segment. By contrast, HighJump's systems are targeted to larger enterprises.