Citizens Commercial Banking served as lead arranger on new financing for Octo’s acquisition of Connexta, a Phoenix-based open source software developer and secure discovery solutions provider to government and commercial customers.

Based in Reston, VA, Octo is a provider of next-generation solutions for the federal market. It has more than 13 years of experience developing mission-critical solutions for the federal government across healthcare, national security, civilian and defense agencies.

With this acquisition, Octo significantly bolsters its client base in the Department of Defense and the intelligence community, particularly the Air Force and its innovative software labs. Following the acquisition, Octo now offers nearly 700 technologists to support and accelerate modernization efforts across its entire public sector customer base.

“Citizens bankers are trusted partners who bring great ideas and they were able to provide a financing solution that made this key acquisition possible,” said Mehul Sanghani, Octo CEO. “The industry expertise of Dillon Bowles, Dan Darnell, Dan Laurenzi and the entire Citizens team helped us complete this transformative deal seamlessly.”

“At Citizens, we think about the needs of our clients like Octo from their point of view and offer holistic solutions,” said Daniel K. Fitzpatrick, president of Citizens Bank, Mid-Atlantic Region and Head of National Industry Verticals. “Providing acquisition financing is just one of the ways that Citizens delivers substantial value for our clients as they grow and during every stage of their business life cycle.”

Citizens Financial Group is one of the nation’s oldest and largest financial institutions, with $162.7 billion in assets as of June 30, 2019. Headquartered in Providence, RI, Citizens offers a broad range of retail and commercial banking products and services to individuals, small businesses, middle-market companies, large corporations and institutions.