February 6, 2017, Orlando, FL – The DiSTI Corporation, the pioneer and leading provider of customized 3-D virtual maintenance training solutions and graphical user interface software, announces a financial investment from Akoya Capital Partners and Dos Rios Partners. The investment paves the way for significantly expanding DiSTI’s market share of innovative 3-D user interface software tools and services into the aerospace, defense, training, and automotive markets. The three founding partners of DiSTI continue to serve in their executive roles and sit on the newly formed Board of Directors. John Regazzi, Akoya Managing Director and Professional Information Services Sector Leader, will serve as Chair of DiSTI’s Board of Directors.
DiSTI’s founding partners pursued this strategy with Akoya and Dos Rios based on their highly selective portfolio of sector-based investments in industry leaders and their partnership-focused approach to growing organizations.
“We are very excited to enter into this business partnership with a true industry leader in their field,” said newly elected DiSTI Chairman John Regazzi. “The demand for DiSTI’s interface development products and services are growing significantly based on several key factors. These include the continued expansion of virtualized technical training in both the civil and military markets and the growing use of digital displays within automotive embedded systems.”
John Regazzi has spent over 40 years in the electronic information services and IT industries and has designed, launched, and managed some of the most innovative and well known information services in the professional, scientific, and engineering communities. John spent most of his career with Reed Elsevier, and retired as CEO of Elsevier Inc. (NYSE: ENL).
“When we started this business over 20 years ago, we never imagined we’d be standing here today as the market leader in virtual maintenance training and user interface development,” said DiSTI President Joe Swinski. “When we decided to take this company to the next level we were thrilled to find partners in Akoya and Dos Rios who value the customer-centric leadership position we’ve built and are prepared to help take us to the next level.”
About Akoya
DiSTI is Akoya’s 11th platform investment in the last 6 years and the 3rd within its Professional Information Services Sector. Akoya continues to seek new platform investments to build upon its success in this segment of the Technology industry. Akoya is looking for businesses where the seller wants to remain active in the business and find a partner to support its strategic, financial and operational growth. We invest in companies with at least $10 million of revenue that focus on:
- Legal, Tax & Regulatory
- Education, Training and Certification
- Digital Publishing & Support Services
- Healthcare IT
Akoya Capital is a sector focused investment firm that creates and nurtures partnerships between management and capital. With industry leading sector leaders, proprietary platform organizations, experienced management teams and co-investors, we collaborate on compelling value creation opportunities. Together, we develop and execute industry sector acquisition strategies that deliver significant, measurable value for management, partners and shareholders.
We will consider smaller companies on a selective basis or as an add-on acquisition. In addition to Professional Information Services, Akoya seeks investment opportunities in the following sectors:
- Specialty Chemicals
- Industrial Products/Value Added Distribution
- Consumer Foods/Products
Contact Us
If you know of a company that fits this profile, we would welcome the opportunity to discuss it with you.
Please contact Jason Apple at 312-546-8301 (japple@akoyacapital.com).
