Ann Arbor-based innovation consulting firm Inovo Technologies  announced today that it acquired St. Joseph-based DASO Consulting. The merged consultancy will be called Inovo, officials said.

Inovo, led by founders Larry Schmitt and Steve Schwartz, has developed a niche for itself in management, innovation and technology consulting. 

"We view this as a very, very complementary merger and it just allows us to do more stuff," Schmitt told AnnArbor.com. "We’re seeing a lot of activity in the market right now. We’re seeing a lot of requests of companies wanting to do stuff in the innovation area, so it gives us the opportunity to address all that."

Inovo Technologies co-founders Larry Schmitt and Steve Schwartz announced today that their firm has acquired St. Joseph-based DASO Consulting.

Inovo recently established a partnership with a consultancy based in India to broaden its global reach. The firm has also partnered with the University of Michigan to develop curriculum strategies for various innovation-based coursework.

Terms of the merger were not disclosed, but DASO Consulting partner Brian Christian said the merged consultancy's four partners would each have an equity stake in the new company.

Schmitt and Christian said the two companies would maintain their separate offices for now. The St. Joseph-based firm mostly targets business in the Chicago region.

The merger is a good fit for both firms because of their shared objectives, Christian said.

"It gives us the combined toolkit that now we can market to our client base and also gives us more scale to do project execution," Christian said. "It’s a marriage of complementary capabilities in the same basic space of innovation."

Inovo's clients have included firms like Dow Chemical, Ford Motor Co. and Johnson Controls.

Contact AnnArbor.com's Nathan Bomey at (734) 623-2587 or nathanbomey@annarbor.com. You can also follow him on Twitter.