Navigation Capital Partners (NCP), an Atlanta-based lower middle-market private equity firm, has acquired Nexus Information Systems, an IT provider of virtualization, storage and managed services, through its newly formed acquisition platform Stratos Management Systems, Inc.

Nexus, based near Minneapolis, offers virtualization, data storage, disaster recovery, networking, servers and the technical and managed services.

“Nexus is consistent with Navigation’s prior ‘buy and build’ investments in high-growth industry segments, and is a very scalable opportunity in an investment category where we’ve spent considerable time,” said Larry Mock, managing partner of NCP. “Additionally, we’ve got an experienced management team of individuals with a deep understanding of the IT services sector that we know well.”

NCP has appointed Ron Farrell, Bret Kidd and Ken Brown as chief executive officer, president and chief operating officer, and executive vice president of Stratos, respectively.

NCP plans to enhance professional and managed services capabilities for Nexus’ existing customers, and grow the Stratos platform through both organic development and additional acquisitions in new geographic markets. NCP has been working with the executive team for the last 12 months, and has already identified a number of attractive acquisition prospects that complement Nexus.

“We’re confident that we’ve got a comprehensive plan in place,” said Mock. “With additional acquisitions and organic growth opportunities, we expect Stratos to grow to $200 million in revenue.”