Earlier this year, iLandMan President Tim Supple went looking to acquire or merge with another software company. He was on the hunt for a partner that could build out iLandman’s accounting capabilities, and although he had a company in mind, the two entities just couldn’t get on the same timeline. Then, the world’s largest oil and gas software company approached him.
“About two or three months ago, that’s about when P2 came along,” he says, referring to the Denver-based P2 Energy Solutions. “And they had everything.”
By the end of May, P2 Energy Solutions had acquired Lafayette-based iLandMan, a lease acquisition and land management software company. Citing a non-disclosure agreement, Supple declined to release the purchase price.
Supple says the acquisition opens the door to better employment benefits for iLandMan’s 21 full-time employees, who will retain their jobs in Lafayette, and also means the company’s four contract workers will be offered employee status with benefits. Part of the agreement required that P2 remain in Lafayette for at least a year (it currently rents an office near South College and East Kaliste Saloom roads), and the company has signed a four-year lease at iLandMan’s current location, 315 S. College Road.
“It was a better deal for our employees, and it was a great deal for us, too,” Supple says. “It was a way to say thank you to our employees, and to say ‘here’s a career path for you.’ There is an opportunity for growth with P2 that is beyond what we could offer.”
iLandMan had been growing at what Supple called a “decent” rate but, he says, he just couldn’t see where that next explosion in dynamic growth would come from.
“P2 had all these products — a full range, from accounting, distribution, production — beyond what we have. They have all these other, bigger things,” adds Supple. “You always hope to find a huge partnership with someone like this, but I never thought of going to these guys because they’re so big. They were our No. 1 competitor.”
According to Supple, iLandMan was growing at between 10 and 15 percent a year; he suspects P2 can double the sales of iLandMan software within two years.
Although its first license wasn’t sold until 2006, iLandMan actually got its start more than two decades ago, developing software to streamline lease acquisition and management processes for oil and gas projects. Its early systems presaged the existence of the cloud, with software that could run on a single server rather than installed on individual devices.
“At the time, in 1995, we thought what would happen eventually is that something like the cloud would take over, and this single-server software idea would also,” Supple says. “We began programming for the cloud before it existed, in anticipation of it.”
Supple believes his company’s acquisition by P2 a validation of that vision.