Comms Dealer

Ireland-based IT services company Version 1 has closed a round of funding to drive phase two of its international growth.

The €90m investment, which will enable Version 1's further expansion into the UK and Europe, will see London based investment firm Volpi Capital take a significant stake in the company, marking its first investment in an Irish company and its largest investment to date.

This is Version 1's second funding round which will see its first round investor, Development Capital, exit in this round and 40 senior managers in Version 1 become shareholders.

Development Capital exits Version 1 with a 250% return on its investment after a period of just three years.

The company will deliver in excess of €100m revenues this year and target more acquisitions and look to the European market as part of a three year expansion push.

Version 1 was founded in 1996 by Justin Keatinge and John Mullen who remain as Board members with former COO Tom O'Connor taking up the role of CEO.

O'Connor said: "As we look forward to the next five years we anticipate further strong organic growth in Ireland and the UK, together with more acquisitive growth.

"With much speculation abounding about the impact of Brexit, we firmly believe that there continues to be massive opportunities for well-run customer focussed Irish firms to expand and grow internationally."

Version 1's first round of funding enabled it to complete three acquisitions in the UK.

Volpi CEO Crevan O'Grady said: "Volpi will work with Version 1 to help it grow internationally and to provide the level of funding this growth will require."

The global IT managed services market is forecast to expand from €120bn in 2014 to €215bn in 2020 demonstrating a CAGR of 8.61%, with the UK being the largest market in Europe.

Hammer has signed an EMEA-wide distribution deal with software defined and hyper converged storage vendor StarWind.

While being EMEA-wide, the agreement will see Hammer acting as the exclusive StarWind distributor in the UK, Ireland, Germany, Italy and the Benelux and Nordics regions.

Hammer said it will support StarWind in the SMB, remote office/branch office and low- to mid-tier enterprise markets.

StarWind is a one-stop shop for full-stack virtualisation infrastructure, providing all the solutions required for a software-defined data centre for primary and backup purposes.

Optimised for Microsoft Hyper-V systems, StarWind appliances are also VMware compatible, enabling customers to migrate from traditional architecture to hyper-converged technology.

Hyper-converged integrated technology offers operational simplicity and scalability and the potential to cut costs.

Gerard Marlow, GM for OEM and Whitebox Storage at Hammer, said: "This relationship will allow us to provide additional, complementary products to our existing customers, but will also give us the ability to engage with new resellers in the SMB and branch office hyper-converged space that our portfolio has not enabled us to reach in the past."

Exertis has completed the integration of Medium UK and is rebranding its AV division as Exertis Medium.

Medium, a specialist audio-visual distributor of projectors, flat panel displays, interactive systems and digital signage was acquired by Exertis last November.

Ian Sempers, said: "Retaining the Medium name recognises the reputation the company has gained in the market for providing AV solutions and is a clear message to vendors and customers that we will continue to offer the same services and support enhanced by the additional products, resources and reach of Exertis.

"Our concept of 'AV for all sizes' demonstrates our ability to provide our customers with anything from a simple cable to a large format display, or a single product to a complex AV solution. All of this from an enviable line-up of small innovative vendors to large commercial brands."

Excalibur's acquisition of Berkshire-based Ntegra's IT support services is the final piece in the firm's strategy to become a 'complete communications and IT partner', according to CEO James Phipps.

"This purchase adds extra strength and depth to our technical support team, as well as gaining important customers in the education and charitable sectors," he said.

Ntegra's provides outsourced IT support to a range of SME customers in and around the M4 corridor.

Its co-founder and CEO Andy Jefferies added: "Our core focus is providing consulting and Enterprise Managed Services to a strong portfolio of FTSE 100 and 250 clients.

"With this in mind we took the strategic decision to find a home for our support services. Excalibur specialises in this area and shares the same values as we do."

The Ntegra deal follows Excalibur's acquisitions of Chippenham-based IT firm Devision, Bridge Solutions and Emnico Enterprises.

IPCortex has lifted the curtain on a new hosted PBX communications platform, IPCortex Hosted Suite, based on the core IPCortex PBX platform used by over 80,000 business users.

IPCortex CEO Rob Pickering said: "Contextual and embedded communication is redefining the value that resellers can expect from hosted services, moving the conversation away from dial tone and increasing the size and spend associated with every deployment.

"Our existing service providers, who have already been deploying the IPCortex platform as hosted, are seeing the benefit of this and reporting growth of 100% year on year. We are facilitating this shift in demand and unlock the opportunity for more partners."

Chess has upped its cyber-security credentials with the acquisition of Sophos's top UK education partner Foursys. The Bury St Edmunds-based company adds £11m annual turnover bringing Chess' run rate to over £120m. Chess founder and CEO David Pollock stated: "Cyber security is of upmost importance for any modern business and this acquisition enhances our security offering to our customers.

"With Foursys we have the talent and technology to deliver integrated solutions across enterprise, mobile and cloud environments."

Foursys MD James Milleradded: "Being part of a much larger business brings new supplier choice, opportunities, expertise and skills in a range of ICT disciplines to our customers and partners."

Johnathan Bartholomew, Channel Sales Director at Sophos, said: "Chess will provide Foursys with the platform to deliver the Sophos security solutions to even more organisations in the UK."

Richard Btesh, Director of Chess, added: "We continue to diversify our product range by making strategic acquisitions of quality businesses."

Six Degrees Group is participating in the Microsoft Cloud Solution Provider Program, designed to strengthen customer relationships and expand cloud sales opportunities by enabling partners to provide direct billing, sell combined offers and services, as well as directly provision, manage and support products and services.

David Howson, CEO of Six Degrees, commented: "Cloud technology is now an integral part of IT delivery for the majority of UK businesses and providers that aggregate multiple services into one integrated solution have a key role to play in the future of the cloud market.

"Joining the Microsoft Cloud Solution Provider program enables Six Degrees to assist customers on their Azure transformation journey and to implement and manage them with efficiency and ease."

David Simpson has joined Virtual1 as Operations Director, moving from Virgin Media where he held a number of senior roles in the operational division including Head of National Networks and most recently running strategy, analytics and NPS for the COO, shaping the five-year strategic plan across 10 operational divisions and linking that to the long-range financial plan.

Tom O'Hagan, Virtual1 CEO, said: "David is a positive, energetic and enthusiastic person who will fit in very well with our core team ethos and prove invaluable as we look to expand our operations."

Simpson added: "This is a great and exciting opportunity for me and I can't wait to get stuck in and make a difference."

Channel Telecom has set the date for its upcoming partner event at the BT Tower in London - a ‘look into the future' day planned for 17th of May.

The event is a reflection of Channel Telecom's morale raising Partner of the Year Awards staged in December, according to MD Clifford Norton.

"It's important to keep that morale going," he stated. "With so many new and exciting opportunities on the horizon it was a natural next-step to dedicate a day towards presenting these prospects to our partners."

Industry giant Dell-EMC has reported fourth quarter revenue of $20.1bn, with full-year revenue of $61.6bn. In a complex year that included the industry's largest merger, it reported an operating loss of $3.3bn, with a non-GAAP operating income of $5.1bn.

Prior-year historical Dell Technologies financials do not include EMC historical results, thereby impacting any year-over-year comparisons.

"I'm pleased with our overall fiscal 2017 performance, with growth in our client business and positive momentum from investments we're making in our infrastructure business," said Tom Sweet, chief financial officer, Dell Technologies.

"In our fiscal year 2018, we'll drive that momentum forward, beginning with our new sales go-to-market capabilities, and continue to target identified revenue and cost synergies while investing in our broad portfolio of solutions."

The company ended the year with a cash and investments balance of $15.3bn, an increase of $287m from the third quarter.

The Client Solutions Group continued to outgrow the market worldwide for units in both commercial and consumer product categories on a calendar year basis, it says. Revenue for the fiscal fourth quarter was $9.8bn, up 11% versus the fourth quarter of last year, and revenue for the full year was $36.8bn, up 2% year over fiscal year 2016. Operating income was $342m for the quarter, and $1.8bn for the full year.

PC shipments were 11 million, representing the largest volume of products shipped since the fourth quarter of 2011, it says. Infrastructure Solutions Group generated $8.4bn of revenue in the fourth quarter, which includes $3.6bn in servers and networking and $4.8bn in storage, and an operating income of $1bn.

VMware revenue for the fourth quarter was $1.9bn, with operating income of $565n, or 29.2% of revenue.