Leeds-based cloud hosting and disaster recovery player virtualDCS is ramping up its growth plans after being acquired by private equity firm MonacoSol.
Manchester-headquartered MonacoSol has taken a majority stake in virtualDCS for an undisclosed sum.
The co-founders of virtualDCS - Richard May, John Murray and Dan Nichols - will remain with the business for the next phase of its journey.
Following the deal, virtualDCS has moved its headquarters from The Waterscape in Kirkstall to larger offices at Wellington Place, a modern development in Leeds city centre. The new base will enable virtualDCS to accommodate a growing team in line with its expansion strategy.
It currently has 22 staff, including developers, system analysts, network engineers and cybersecurity specialists, and expects its workforce to grow by around a dozen over the next 12 months backed by MonacoSol’s investment, with recruitment plans focused on expanding its commercial and technical teams.
The business, which was founded in 2008, and which currently generates over £2.8m in sales, works directly with customers as well as through a variety of channel partners, including Phoenix Software, CCS Media and Vapour Cloud, that deliver its cloud services to their own client base.
Customers of virtualDCS span sectors ranging from retailing, local government, hospitality, food wholesaling, healthcare, IT support and fuel supplies, to research outfits and professional bodies. Clients include B&M Retail, The Rix Group and its diverse portfolio of businesses, and Achilles, a supply chain risk management software provider.
In 2023, virtualDCS became Europe’s first partner winner of a Veeam Innovation Award, and triumphed again last year. The awards recognised virtualDCS’s innovative approach to Microsoft Entra ID protection, leveraging its Veeam CloudCover Guardian for Azure solution, which protects over 200 configurations within a Microsoft 365 tenancy.
May said: “This acquisition is a key moment in virtualDCS’s journey. By joining forces with MonacoSol, we’re gaining the resources and expertise needed to accelerate our growth and enhance what we offer to our customers.
“It’s very much business as usual for our clients and, with the added firepower of MonacoSol, we’re in an even stronger position to innovate, expand our capabilities and deliver exceptional solutions.”
MonacoSol is the family office of technology and software entrepreneur Richard Beaton, who is its chairman. His sons Ollie and Eddie are its chief executive and chief financial officer, respectively.
In October, MonacoSol announced a war chest of £40m to power its acquisition strategy. It takes majority stakes in B2B software and technology businesses and provides them with capital to help them grow.
The other companies in MonacoSol’s portfolio are Open ECX, an AP automation software provider, recruitment vendor management platform Hiring Hub, and graduate sales and training recruitment provider Furza, which are all based in Northern England.
Ollie Beaton said: “virtualDCS is an innovative cloud business with a knowledgeable team and a loyal customer base. Alongside the financial investment, the MonacoSol team has a great deal of experience in the cloud technology industry to help support the virtualDCS team to accelerate the next phase of growth for the company.”
