LGS Innovations closes first deal

When I talked to LGS Innovations CEO Kevin Kelly earlier this summer, he laid out the strategy of the company which was spun out of Alcatel-Lucent in 2014.

He talked about investing for growth and for technologies that could bolster the company’s work in networking and communication solutions.

Part of that investment strategy was making mergers and acquisition. At the time, LGS hadn’t closed a deal.

“We’ve probably looked at 100 companies,” Kelly said at the time. “And we had serious management meetings with five or so, and now we are targeting just one or two.”

With the announcement Thursday that they had acquired Axios Inc., it looks like LGS has its target.

Axios develops communications and signal processing solutions and provides mission support services for the Defense Department and intelligence agencies.

The addition of its capabilities compliments to LGS’ work with intelligence, surveillance and reconnaissance technologies by bringing in mission-attached services and applications development, LGS said in a statement.

The company has 120 employees, with more than half holding advanced degrees in electrical engineering, computer engineering and computer science.

“Axios has a high caliber of project performance, corporate culture, and outstanding people,” Kelly said in the statement.

Axios was founded in 2000 and some of its specific capabilities are in areas such as RF communications and signal processing, mission operations, frameworks and open source technology, software defined radio, tactical programs, and other solution areas.

Axios will operate as a wholly owned subsidiary of LGS.

The acquisition is LGS’ first since it was purchased from Alcatel-Lucent by Madison Dearborn Partners and CoVant in 2014. Houlihan Lokey served as the financial advisor to Axios.

Terms of the deal were not disclosed.