NEWS : RESELLERS technologyreseller.co.uk 09 Following a year of record growth, BCN Group, the managed IT, cloud and digital transformation specialist backed by Beech Tree Private Equity, has moved into larger headquarters in the Manchester Green Business Park. The 6,500 sq ft space will accommodate BCN’s existing 70-strong team of engineers, specialists, support analysts, management, sales and marketing experts, with space for new recruits as the business continues to grow organically and through acquisitions. In the last 18 months, BCN has completed three major acquisitions (Blue Logic, Polymorph and Xicon Cloud) and achieved record annual turnover of £24m. The office includes a dedicated Network Operation Centre, as well as space for training and collaboration with staff, vendor partners and clients. BCN Group, which also has offices in Leeds, Chorley and Runcorn, supports more than 800 companies in the North of England with on-premise IT solutions, its own BCN cloud infrastructure and Microsoft 365 and Azure platform solutions. BCN Group prepares for growth with move to new HQ John Whitty Nick Halliday Pete Tomlinson Atlas Cloud expands offering Atlas Cloud, a North East-based MSP, has expanded its service offering to give UK businesses the tools and resources needed to implement an effective hybrid workplace strategy. This includes a transition to Azure public cloud services to provide ‘on demand’ virtual desktop services and the launch of a new IT service designed to help companies adapt to hybrid working and the use of personal devices for business. The solution manages all existing endpoints within a company’s network – desktop machines, laptops, servers, virtual servers – and includes proactive monitoring to detect and address potential issues before they affect an organisation’s operations. www.atlascloud.co.uk Third brace of acquisitions by Air IT Fast growing MSP Air IT, backed by August Equity, has announced its third pair of acquisitions in the last six months. The acquisitions of Kent-based InfoTech Solutions (UK) Limited and Cheshire-based Concise Technologies Limited – the fifth and sixth M&A deals led by CEO John Whitty – increase the company’s headcount by 50, add 250 clients and give it a firm foothold in the North West and an expanded presence in the South East. John Whitty said: “These acquisitions allow us to expand our footprint and gain skilful, like-minded team members. Entering the North West has always been one of our strategic goals, along with future growth in the North East, and we now have the capability to deliver a national offering, serviced locally.” www.air-it.co.uk New investor for Node4 Node4, a cloud-led digital transformation MSP, has secured a new principal investor in Providence Equity Partners, following five years of organic growth and three strategic acquisitions, including that of Starcom Technologies, the MSP division of K3 Business Technologies Group, in February. The transaction sees mid-market private equity firms Bowmark Capital and LDC realise their investments. Andrew Gilbert, Founder and CEO of Node4, said: “We are excited to be working with Providence as Node4 continues to build momentum and swiftly moves on to the next stage of its ambitious growth journey. We will continue down our well-proven path of organic growth, building on Node4’s best-in- class systems and supplementing this with exciting strategic acquisitions.” SaaS businesses wanted for tech accelerator scheme Leeds-headquartered software development and systems integration specialist IDS Group has announced a £2m tech accelerator scheme to fuel the growth of UK SaaS businesses. In an extension of its six-month tech accelerator programme for SaaS entrepreneurs, which provides a portfolio of technical skills, resource and contacts, IDS Group is making eight pots of £250,000 available for SaaS innovations. The company’s accelerator initiative includes everything from initial research, discovery and architecture design to the launch of applications and the creation of development roadmaps. Successes to date include digital works management platform eviFile, insurtech software ManageMy, document management system PandaDoc, Lancaster Model healthcare assessment software for NHS Trusts, and TimboRetro agile events software. IDS Group founding CEO and tech entrepreneur Nick Halliday said: “There are some extremely exciting things happening in the world of SaaS right now, but bootstrapped businesses are often prevented from reaching their full potential, or at least slowed down, because entrepreneurs are forced to make short- term decisions that are either at odds with longer-term risk mitigation or fail to capitalise on true market potential. Our goal is to support entrepreneurs to build highly scalable, robust and marketable SaaS solutions.”
[email protected] Windsor Telecom appointed CityFibre champion for Thames Valley towns Windsor Telecom has been appointed City Champion for Reading, Maidenhead, Slough and Bracknell by CityFibre, the UK’s third national digital infrastructure platform. In this capacity, Windsor Telecom will extend the full fibre message to businesses in the region and offer the fast speeds and reliability of full fibre to its customers at an attractive price. Pete Tomlinson, CEO of Windsor Telecom, said: “We’re delighted to add CityFibre full fibre to our propositions. Over the past year, with people getting increasingly reliant on cloud-based solutions, we’ve all experienced first-hand the challenges that come from poor connectivity. As people start to move back to the office environment, now is the perfect time to ensure that you’re maximising the connectivity speeds available to you at the best price. We’re confident that our role as CityFibre champion enables us to provide exactly that service.” Andrew Wilson, Head of Wholesale for CityFibre, said: “We’ve made significant investments to bring full fibre to the Thames Valley area and want to do everything we can to give businesses the opportunity to take advantage. With its strong reputation and presence in the region, Windsor Telecom is ideally-placed to help us reach our goals.”