Managed service provider Celerity has sealed a £15m investment from UK capital investor BGF to aid its growth.
Preston, Lancashire-headquartered Celerity provides IT, hybrid cloud, cyber security and data recovery services to clients,
BGF’s minority share funding will allow management, led by founder Chris Roche (CEO) and Craig Aston (COO), to continue scaling the business.
“In the last 19 years, we have achieved sustained business growth by diversifying from the provision of enterprise infrastructure to a cloud and managed services specialist, across both public and private sectors,” said Roche (pictured). “We felt now was the perfect time to accelerate our growth, with a like-minded investor with the experience and expertise of scaling other high-growth technology businesses.”
As part of the deal, Phil Male will join the board as non-executive chair (NXC). Male has also acted as NXC for other BGF portfolio companies, including Virtual1, ROI and Miss Group.
The deal was led by Harry Jones and Spencer Woods, investors in BGF’s North West team. Jones will also join the Celerity board.
“We have known the team at Celerity for several years and recognised a strong cultural alignment between our organisations,” said Jones. “We have closely tracked their transition from a reseller and integrator of infrastructure to a highly successful IT managed services provider. Celerity’s impressive growth has accelerated rapidly through major contract wins, with managed service revenues more than quadrupling in the last 12 months. The management team’s track record of delivering growth made the company an extremely attractive investment proposition,” Jones said.
BGF has invested more than £100m in tech businesses in 2021, and has announced “seven successful exits in the sector so far this year”. Of the £538m invested in tech businesses to date, 70% of the capital has been deployed outside of London and the South East. BGF was set up in 2011 and has invested £2.5 billion in more than 400 companies.
