Atea was originally founded as Merkantildata in 1968. In its current form, the company was formed through a merger of large Nordic IT infrastructure providers and the subsequent acquisition of 50 IT companies between 2006 and 2015. Atea is a key hardware and software reseller and service provider in the Nordic and Baltic countries. The company is a market leader in regional IT and is currently the third-largest such company in Europe. Atea collaborates with major global IT companies such as Microsoft, Apple, and Cisco.