Nasstar bolsters data expertise with Colibri Digital buy

Cloud and comms player Nasstar has added more depth to its data engineering capabilities with the acquisition of Colibri Digital.

Colibri has been around for a decade and focuses on delivering cloud consultancy services with expertise around big data and analytics, selling into enterprise and public sector customer bases.

The plan is for Colibri Digital’s founder and CEO James Cross to stay with the business and join the Nasstar executive team to head up the enlarged data engineering services business.

Nasstar quoted figures of expected growth in the global big data analytics market that indicated that over the next six years the technology and services area should grow at a compound annual growth rate of 13.4% to reach a position where the opportunity is sized at $655.53bn by 2029.

“The appetite for digital transformation is accelerating. To capture the opportunity, we plan to grow our existing digital application and data offerings and augment our technology capabilities through big data interpretation and organisation,” said Nasstar CEO Paul Cosgrave.

“Since its founding, Nasstar has been on a journey to address B2B clients’ increasing needs for pure cloud services and connectivity. By bringing together the best of next-generation application development, data and AI [artificial intelligence] consulting services, we will continue to provide a leading end-to-end service, with tailored support for our clients whom we are supporting to achieve their digital transformation objectives,” he added.

Cosgrave said the deal, the terms of which were not disclosed, also strengthened its data engineering services proposition, “allowing us to continue to scale fast-growing digital services alongside traditional managed services”.

In response, Colibri’s Cross said it had an established business that was delivering data insights to a satisfied customer base.

“At Colibri, we are passionate about leveraging the power of the cloud to unlock incremental value in our clients’ collection of datasets. By working with our clients to navigate a rapidly changing emerging technologies’ landscape, we enable them to better understand their data, while enhancing their business intelligence capabilities and operating efficiencies,” he said.

“Colibri has delivered exceptional growth since we were founded, with an expanding set of high-profile clients and 130% YoY top-line growth in FY22. By joining Nasstar, we hope to further accelerate our growth trajectory in data engineering services and provide great value to Nasstar’s enterprise client base, leveraging the latest technologies to unlock digital transformation objectives,” he added.

Nasstar is no stranger to using acquisition as a means of increasing the scope of the business, having sealed a number of deals in the past four years, including Modality Systems in 2019, Nasstar a year later, and KCOM ICT Services, which included Smart421, in 2021. Those deals, plus organic growth, have helped the firm produce 30% growth in its fiscal year 2022 and revenues in excess of £200m.

This latest deal caps a busy week for Nasstar, which transferred its SME customer base to Global 4 Communications on 17 February, as it looked to bolster its position in the mid-market and enterprise market segments.