AHEAD Acquires Vertical Trail to Meet Increasing Demand for Advanced Data and Analytics at Scale 

The investment broadens AHEAD’s existing portfolio of solutions across cloud, automation, security, and application development

CHICAGO — AHEAD, a leading provider of enterprise cloud solutions, announced it has acquired data and analytics consulting firm Vertical Trail. This acquisition adds an integral component to AHEAD’s fast growing portfolio of modern application and cloud infrastructure offerings, helping clients more quickly and effectively utilize their data to create actionable insights and drive positive business outcomes. 

“A top priority of our clients is to solve complex business problems through the use of data and analytics. Businesses who thrive today are those who understand how to collect, manage and analyze their data in a scalable manner,” said Eric Kaplan, CTO at AHEAD. “We’re committed to helping clients accelerate and scale their digital transformation efforts, and now with Vertical Trail onboard, we’re better positioned than ever to deliver on those commitments.” 

Based in Chicago, Vertical Trail helps large enterprises uncover high-value insights through modern, cloud-based data engineering and data science solutions. While the market for enterprise data warehousing and data analytics has long been established, Vertical Trail delivers cloud-based solutions and has built a reputation for helping enterprise clients innovate faster using modern data architectures and data science tools. The firm has developed its own cloud-based accelerators like the Troodon TM Analytics Hub, an automated data science environment consisting of storage, security, development, big data analytics, and visualizations.

“Our passion is data, and we believe that the answers to today’s greatest business challenges lie within data,” said Robert Koury, Managing Partner at Vertical Trail. “We’re thrilled to be joining the AHEAD team, where alongside their cloud infrastructure and modern apps solutions, we’ll be able to help our clients not only innovate faster, but more holistically.”

The Vertical Trail agreement will infuse data and analytics offerings into an already strong AHEAD portfolio of infrastructure, automation, security and modern apps solutions. The acquisition builds on a foundation of three acquisitions made by AHEAD in 2020, collectively designed to increase AHEAD’s national presence and expand more aggressively into business applications and data insights. The Vertical Trail combination will also bring to AHEAD new high-growth partnerships with vendors such as Snowflake, Dataiku and Tableau.  

Koury, along with co-founder Larry Pollastrini, formed Vertical Trail in 2015. Both will join AHEAD’s solutions leadership team to help ensure a smooth integration, drive value for key clients, and chart the company’s course as it expands further into business data and analytics.

About AHEAD 

AHEAD builds platforms for digital business. By weaving together advances in cloud infrastructure, intelligent operations, and modern applications, we help enterprises deliver on the promise of digital transformation. Learn more at www.ahead.com and follow us on Twitter at @ahead. 

About Vertical Trail 

Vertical Trail provides data-driven solutions built to run in the cloud. Using modern cloud and data technologies, Vertical Trail creates new and innovative solutions that deliver meaningful impacts and accelerate outcomes. For more information, visit: https://www.verticaltrail.com/