Six months after acquiring a major stake in Colorado Springs-based data analysis company Bluestaq, The O’neil Group has bought majority ownership in another data analytics company, Innovative Scientific Solutions & Analytics, or ISSAC.

Terms of the transaction were not disclosed, but ISSAC CEO Tim Jones will remain in his role and O’neil will retain the company’s more than 30 employees in Colorado Springs and Huntsville, Ala., who work on contracts and subcontracts with the Army, Navy, Missile Defense Agency, U.S. intelligence agencies and in the health care industry. ISSAC also specializes in systems engineering, software development, modeling and simulation and artificial intelligence.

The investment is the latest The O’neil Group, a Springs-based private-equity company, has made in local military and government contracting companies. O’neil Group last year started Devone, a Colorado Springs company that specializes in software development, cybersecurity, artificial intelligence and machine learning. And it made a major investment in Bluestaq in January to help the 70-employee company grow beyond the defense and intelligence sectors.

Jones said ISSAC management began exploring ways to raise investment capital for growth in 2018 and narrowed its focus late last year to larger local companies with complementary technologies and similar corporate cultures.

He said the O’neil investment will allow ISSAC to add 10 to 20 employees in the next two years as the company further expands into the health care industry, which Jones said is the company’s biggest market opportunity. “For several years, we have been approached by out-of-state investors about buying ISSAC, which would shift our corporate focus away from Colorado,” Jones said. “I am pleased we were able to find a partner who will keep the company here.”

O’neil Group bought Braxton Science and Technology Group in

2008 and added more than 300 employees through new contracts and acquisitions, boosting revenue by 25 times before selling the company to Virginia engineering and construction giant Parsons last year for $300 million; Parsons said it would retain Braxton employees, including 200 in Colorado Springs.

O’neil Group CEO Kevin O’neil said he targets local defense and technology companies poised for growth to help keep the companies and the jobs they create in the Springs.

“I am excited by this opportunity to partner with Tim Jones and his team and keep ISSAC in Colorado Springs’” Kevin O’neil said. “We look forward to bringing our resources, experience and knowledge to help this talented group of professionals in Colorado Springs reach greater heights. ISSAC has several data analytic tools that could be used in both the defense and health care industries and it is critical that we keep the headquarters and jobs here in Colorado Springs.”

ISSAC was started by Jones and his wife, Eve Jones, in 2006. It grew by winning subcontracts and $4.6 million in Small Business Innovation Research grants from the Department of Defense between 2012 and 2020 for systems engineering, modeling, simulation and related technologies.