Acquisitions of three diverse firms put spot spotlight on region

A trio of companies born in the Sarasota-Bradenton area in varying industries have been recently sold — highlighting an ideal economic development officials have long coveted: that the regional economy should go beyond tourism and marketing. The sold companies, all significant employers in the region, are a robotics engineering firm, a medical cannabis company and a telecommunications software business.   

The latest deal is one of the biggest of a homegrown company in the region in years. In that acquisition, announced Jan. 29,  Markham, Ontario-based Sangoma Technologies Corp. acquired Star2Star, a cloud communications services and software firm founded in 2006 in a Sarasota garage and now based in south Manatee County. Sangoma paid for $437 million for Star2Star, according to a statement, with $105 million in cash and 110 million shares of the firm, traded on the TSX Venture Exchange in Canada.