Exclusive Networks expands again with Veracomp buy

Exclusive Networks is set to become a €3bn-plus revenue outfit focused on the cyber security and cloud transformation market after sealing a deal to buy Veracomp.

The latest target will give Exclusive Networks greater coverage of Central and Eastern Europe (CEE), and bolster its efforts to support global partners looking for access to more markets with a single distribution partner.

Headquartered in Poland, 30-year-old Veracomp has an annual turnover in the region of €300m and supports a base of more than 3,000 resellers. The business employs more than 400 staff in 10 countries: Poland, Romania, Czech Republic, Slovakia, Serbia, Croatia, Slovenia, Bosnia and Herzegovina, Hungary and Bulgaria.

Gerard Allison, senior vice-president of Europe, the Middle East and Africa (EMEA) at Exclusive Networks, said he was familiar with Veracomp and had worked with the company in a previous position.

“I joined Exclusive Networks back in January. Prior to that I was running Gigamon across EMEA, and Veracomp was one of our distributors. They are a true value-added distributor and are very like-minded in the way they go to market,” he said.

“They clearly give us great power geographically. That’s one of the areas, if you look through our history Exclusive Networks. We’ve always looked at expanding our geographical coverage, and with Veracomp we get 10 countries in Central and Eastern Europe, we get an organisation that is predominantly focused around cyber security, like ourselves,” he added.

Before making the latest move, Exclusive would go into central and eastern Europe at the request of a partner on a more ad hoc basis.

Allison said the latest deal underlined that it was not just looking for revenue growth, but also trying to provide more geographical coverage for vendors and systems integrators.

“It is not just growth or revenue, but value to our vendors and our partners. We’re continually bringing new ways of going to market, new coverage areas, and this is going to help our vendors and our partners achieve that,” he said.

“Global organisations are expanding all the time across territories, and this will just give great coverage for our product portfolio services portfolio and allow them to go into new territories,” he added.

Andy Travers, executive vice-president of worldwide sales and marketing at Exclusive Networks, said the Veracomp deal pre-dated the coronavirus pandemic and discussions had been going on for a year.

“The deal should complete in the fourth quarter, and that that would give us a combined organisation that would generate in excess of €3bn a year, focused purely on the cyber security and cloud transformation market. So it’s a very unique global proposition,” he said.

Adam Rudowski, CEO at Veracomp, said the tie-up would be a positive one for anyone connected to the business.

“Teaming up with Exclusive Networks shows that our approach has been working and allows us to contribute our expertise to a truly global mission while continuing to target growth and create more value in the channel. There are great opportunities for existing and potential vendor and reseller partners to increase scale in the CEE region, and for our people to write a new chapter in a fantastic success story,” he said.

The Veracomp acquisition follows on less than a week since Exclusive deepened its footprint in Asia with the purchase of Hong-Kong based JJNET.

That business currently employs 22 people and holds strategic distribution agreements with the likes of Ruckus, Microfocus, Pulse Secure, A10 Network and ExtraHop in the spheres of cyber and cloud. The plans are to increase the headcount fairly quickly to 30 and get the business reporting into Exclusive’s Asia-Pacific operation in Singapore.