Giacom, the channel-only cloud services provider, has been acquired from private capital by channel-only IT, communications and cloud platform business Digital Wholesale Solutions (DWS).
Sellers Livingbridge, the mid-market private equity investor, first invested in Giacom in 2017. Giacom’s Cloud Market platform is offered to providers who look after the IT needs of SMEs. Cloud Market delivers SaaS solutions - including Microsoft 365 and Azure, security and backup solutions - to over 70,000 end-user SMEs through Giacom’s channel clients.
DWS, which was spun out of the Daisy Group, provides IT, communications and cloud products and services to over 2,500 partners, with expertise in voice, mobile, unified comms and connectivity services.
As remote working and cloud-based collaboration accelerates the convergence of unified communications and IT, both companies are keen to point out the potential growth opportunities.
CEO Mike Wardell (pictured) will remain in post, leading the Giacom business with the support of his existing management team. The business will continue to operate its channel-focused model under the Giacom brand.
The added value to customers will be the potential opportunities to “cross-pollinate” products and share expertise through the group of businesses.
Wardell said: “The more time we spent with the team from DWS, the more similarities we saw in our businesses and how we approach the channel. From our focus on customer experience to our business values to the integration approach we each adopt for our technology platforms, it was clear that the two businesses are a great fit.”
Terry O’Brien, CEO of DWS, added: “I’ve admired the Giacom business for a number of years. Bringing together these two high growth businesses in unified comms and cloud services is a huge step forward in our plans to support an ever converging ICT partner channel. I think this will be great for our combined 5,500 partners.”
