Earlier this month I was both excited and worried to hear of the $1.2B ViaWest acquisition by Calgary-based telecom company Shaw Communications. Excited to have another entrepreneurial success story for the state and excited for the founders Roy Dimoff and Nancy Phillips, and worried at that same time that this acquisition was following the same path as many of our Colorado startup successes becoming a "branch office" for external powerhouse parent companies.

ViaWest was started in 1999 by Roy and Nancy. They both have strong entrepreneurial backgrounds in the state and over the past 15 years have built a world class managed services, co-lo, cloud and data center company and garnered investment from leading PE names like Oak Hill Capital Partners and GI Partners. Based in Denver, they operate 27 cutting edge data centers thoughtout the western US with over 600,000 square feet of raised floor space and long list of fortune 500 clients. ViaSat has been a large client over the past half a dozen years and we find their services impeccable.

Roy Dimoff (Chairman) and Nancy Phillips (CEO) - ViaWest

Nancy Phillips, serves as the company President and CEO has been a strong entrepreneurial contributor to our state. She is an incredibly generous person, donating lots of her time to the Blackstone Network (where we serve together on the board), the National Center for Women and Information Technology (NCWIT); the Colorado Technical Association (CTA) and the Denver School of Science and Technology (DSST).

So success couldn't come to a nicer more deserving team and I was ecstatic to hear from Nancy this week that the entire management team was committed to staying in place here in Denver and running this expansion vertical for Shaw as a contained entity. That is great news as ViaWest is an iconic entrepreneurial success story for Colorado and it is great to hear Nancy will stay committed to all she does for our community. Congrats Nancy and the entire ViaWest team on your great success!