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Babble makes it five acquisitions in Q1
The cloud and comms specialist has struck its fourth and fifth deals of the year so far as it continues to shore up its market position
Cloud player Babble has continued its policy of striking acquisitions in pairs, with the firm sealing two more deals.
The decision to add Midland Comms and Cloudstream Technology takes Babble to five deals struck in the first quarter of 2023 alone.
There’s little doubt the firm is one of the most acquisitive in the market, and is determined to bolster its position as a cloud solutions provider able to cover both IT and comms markets. A buy and build strategy has been in full swing for the past couple of years, with the firm adding more coverage and market depth to bolster its position.
The latest additions add a further £4.5m of revenues, at least 90% of which is recurring, which will help take Babble’s overall revenue run rate past £100m per year.
It also takes the customer base up to the 18,000 mark, providing the business with further coverage of small and medium-sized enterprise customers. The deals also add 30 staff to the Babble headcount.
The terms of the acquisitions were not disclosed, and neither of the latest additions commented on the move.
Tewkesbury-based Midland Comms has built up a 40-year pedigree, serving 500 customers across the Midlands with a range of comms and managed IT services offerings.
Expertise
Fife-headquartered Cloudstream Technology comes with a customer base of more than 350 across Scotland, the North of England and Northern Ireland, and has been in the market since 1999. The firm has expertise across a number of vendors, including Microsoft, Dell, HPE, Lenovo and VMware.
“These two strategic acquisitions significantly strengthen our position as the only UK Cloud Service Provider of both Comms and IT solutions at scale,” said Matt Parker, Babble CEO.
“They bring high-quality retained customers and fantastic, expert people into Babble,” he added. “This also further extends our geographical reach across the UK, bolstering our ability to offer nationwide coverage with local support to give customers the best possible levels of service.”
Already this year, Babble has picked up Gateshead-based mobile services provider Corporate Wardair Limited and Chester-based telecoms and IT service provider Avandda in April. Earlier this month, it deepened its Microsoft expertise with the addition of TechQuarters, as well as strengthening its support and training depth with the acquisition of Stonegate.
The latest deals take it past the 30-acquisition mark, with 16 of them taking place in the past year, as it takes advantage of the investment it received from Graphite Capital in 2020.
