Texas company acquires Liberty Lake tech firm IT-Lifeline

A private Texas firm has acquired IT-Lifeline, a fast-growing Liberty Lake tech company that provides backup and disaster recovery services for corporations and institutions.

Terms of the deal were not disclosed. The acquisition closed Dec. 31.

Rentsys Recovery Services, based in College Station, Texas, has previously worked on some disaster-recovery partnerships with IT-Lifeline, said Walt Thomasson, Rentsys’ managing director.

One of the key goals was to add the knowledge and market presence in cloud-based recovery and business continuity that IT-Lifeline has developed, Thomasson said.

No decision has been made on whether to change IT-Lifeline’s name or product brands, he added.

Rentsys was formed in 1995. It has widened its business focus from providing emergency hardware resources for customers to developing a full spectrum of continuity services for corporations.

Disaster recovery is the service companies need when they experience major disruptions such as loss of power, destruction of property or inability to reach work sites.

Continuity services cover the related focus of ensuring that a company’s workers can gain access to critical information and manage company operations during a major disruption.

IT-Lifeline’s recent growth has largely been based on working with banks and credit unions, said Brandon Tanner, the company’s vice president of sales and marketing. He said the company, which has about 20 employees, increased sales by 11 percent in 2013.

Thomasson said the merger is a major move by Rentsys into cloud-based services. “The primary reason (we acquired them) was not the product so much as the expertise IT-Lifeline has in cloud operations,” he said.