Yorkshire-based technology specialist Vapour Cloud is looking to acquire at least two IT and communications businesses as it prepares for growth of up to 80% in 2018.
With an estimated £10m to spend over the coming year, CEO Tim Mercer is on the look-out to buy a Northern IT support firm with Microsoft partner status.
Ideally he wants to find a company with “a skill-set in the public cloud” and a traditional voice company with a large customer base that needs to migrate to a cloud offering.
“We mark our fifth year in business this July, so as we look ahead to what the board is trying to achieve going forward, a buy and build strategy is a natural progression for the organisation,” said Mercer.
“We’ve established a 96% net recurring revenue rate to date, so our business development model is easy to maintain. We had a 64% seed of growth in 2017, and hope to realise 65-80% by the end of this year.
“There are a number of well-established operators in this sector – dozens of which started out as lifestyle businesses – but many are not cloud-first.
“Of course, some are rising to the challenge and quickly adapting their offering to satisfy clients’ modern business needs.
“But cloud is an entirely different world. We therefore hope that by acquiring two – or more – of these such companies, we can successfully build on the legacy the current owners will leave behind, whilst supplying their customers with the next generation products and services they’re looking for.”
Vapour is based in Halifax and specialises in cloud-secure voice, connectivity and storage solutions. It has 32 staff and has attracted £4m of private equity investment to date.
