Startups

Philly-tied ecommerce firm SUMO Heavy has been acquired by ITX

Cofounder and longtime local tech presence Bart Mroz, who's now based in Jersey City, said the move allows both companies to expand their clients and services. Here's what's next — and where Philly fits.

SUMO Heavy cofounders Bart Mroz (left) and Robert Brodie. (Courtesy Bart Mroz)

SUMO Heavy, an ecommerce company that was previously headquartered in Philadelphia, has been acquired by the Rochester-based global software development company ITX.

CEO Bart Mroz and his cofounder, CTO Robert Brodie, started the company in 2010 in Philadelphia. They moved to New York City for seven years, but returned to Philly in 2019.

Mroz told Technical.ly this acquisition came about after meeting Sean Flaherty, ITX’s EVP of innovation, about a year ago. ITX is much larger, with about 300 employees compared to Sumo’s 10, he said, but he saw that the way they worked with clients was similar to SUMO.

“The culture has been almost exactly the same. We always looked at it from a perspective of, they’re just a larger version of us,” Mroz said. “So that fit what we thought is the best way to grow our services — because we were smaller and have certain limitations with some services, whereas now it opens up bigger service offerings for our clients. And obviously, the opposite also happens to ITX, where we’re bringing a lot more into the space for them from the ecommerce perspective.”

All 10 of SUMO’s employees came over to ITX, and there were no layoffs with the acquisition, per the execs. Mroz joined ITX as engagement lead and Brodie joined the company as delivery director. (We call that an acquihire.)

An office with an open floor plan

Inside SUMO Heavy’s pre-pandemic Old City digs. (Courtesy SUMO Heavy)

“ITX is proud to add SUMO Heavy’s eCommerce expertise to our existing capabilities in transaction- and data-centric industries like financial services and healthcare,” ITX CEO Ralph Dandrea said in an announcement. “We are also extremely excited to welcome another highly skilled team of problem solvers and an impressive roster of clients to ITX.”

Mroz hopes this acquisition brings growth, mentorship and expansion to other services.

“One of the things we’ve always talked about [is] having UX and design which we never did,” he said. “This was a fun way to have expansion in those services. So not only working for our clients, but working in a bigger scope of what ITX does.”

SUMO previously maintained an office in Old City, but after the pandemic forced remote work, the company went remote. Mroz said many of SUMO’s employees are still based in the Philadelphia region.

Mroz himself is now in Jersey City, and Brodie is in Birdsboro. The CEO said he moved out of the Philly region for personal reasons, but plans to stay involved in the Philly tech community. This move also gives him the flexibility to travel easily to both Philly and New York.

“I’ve been around the tech community for so long,” said Mroz, who was one of Indy Hall’s first full-time members. “A lot of this stuff after the pandemic is coming back and trying to figure out some more meetups and [going] to networking events and being still around, a little less obviously just because of distance sometimes for me, but trying to do more things in Philly would be really fun.”

Sarah Huffman is a 2022-2024 corps member for Report for America, an initiative of The Groundtruth Project that pairs young journalists with local newsrooms. This position is supported by the Lenfest Institute for Journalism.
Companies: SUMO Heavy Industries

Before you go...

Please consider supporting Technical.ly to keep our independent journalism strong. Unlike most business-focused media outlets, we don’t have a paywall. Instead, we count on your personal and organizational support.

3 ways to support our work:
  • Contribute to the Journalism Fund. Charitable giving ensures our information remains free and accessible for residents to discover workforce programs and entrepreneurship pathways. This includes philanthropic grants and individual tax-deductible donations from readers like you.
  • Use our Preferred Partners. Our directory of vetted providers offers high-quality recommendations for services our readers need, and each referral supports our journalism.
  • Use our services. If you need entrepreneurs and tech leaders to buy your services, are seeking technologists to hire or want more professionals to know about your ecosystem, Technical.ly has the biggest and most engaged audience in the mid-Atlantic. We help companies tell their stories and answer big questions to meet and serve our community.
The journalism fund Preferred partners Our services
Engagement

Join our growing Slack community

Join 5,000 tech professionals and entrepreneurs in our community Slack today!

Trending

The person charged in the UnitedHealthcare CEO shooting had a ton of tech connections

The looming TikTok ban doesn’t strike financial fear into the hearts of creators — it’s community they’re worried about

Where are the country’s most vibrant tech and startup communities?

Experian acquires Audigent, adtech giant backed early by Philly orgs, for reported $200M+

Technically Media