13 MARCH, 2020: LONDON: IT Lab, the technology service and solutions provider business behind McLaren F1 sports cars, has today announced the acquisition of Sol-Tec Limited, one of Microsoft’s largest Azure partners in the UK and globally awarded ‘Azure Influencer Partner of the Year’ Finalist. The details of the transaction have not been disclosed.
Sol-Tec Limited, (“Sol-Tec”), one of the UK’s leading Azure professional services providers, enabled the transition of public sector giants including the Department of Work and Pensions; HMRC; and Department for Education and other leading public and private sector organisations to confidently and cost effectively take advantage of Azure services.
Supporting a top three UK supermarket chain and a top five online financial services business to leverage the power of Microsoft Azure, Sol-Tec paves the way to Azure adoption using a combination of its deep Azure expertise and Velocity Landing Zone. Velocity Landing Zone is Sol-Tec’s proprietary methodology for using pre-defined artefacts to expedite the deployment and configuration of highly scalable and secure baseline Azure environments.
Following its recent acquisitions of SMB specialist, Mirus in 2019 and leading Microsoft Office365 and SharePoint partner, Content and Code in September 2018, the turnover for the combined IT Lab group is now around £85m, with strong organic growth continuing. Achieving yet another milestone on its way to becoming the most awarded and capable Microsoft partner in the UK, IT Lab is one of the very few partners able to provide services to its clients across all three elements of Microsoft’s Cloud, Office 365 and Modern Workplace; Azure and Dynamics 365.
Nik Topham, CEO and founder of Sol-Tec, commented that “IT Lab was the natural home for Sol-Tec, with its dedicated focus on Microsoft and the deep expertise already established across Modern Workplace and Dynamics 365, Sol-Tec’s exceptional Azure capability complements and strengthens the ability of IT Lab to help our combined clients truly leverage the power of the Microsoft Cloud. In addition to this being a great capability fit from our client’s perspective, our cultures, ethos and ambitions align perfectly.”
Since its acquisition of Perspective Risk in May 2017, IT Lab has complemented its managed services offering with a full service cyber security practice spanning penetration testing, governance risk and compliance and established Security Operations Centre, even recently becoming one of the few cyber security specialists in the UK to have implemented Sentinel, Microsoft’s advanced cloud-native SIEM (security information and event management) tool.
Peter Sweetbaum, CEO of IT Lab stated “Sol-Tec is a true Azure expert, with market leading expertise in the design, deployment and configuration of secure and compliant Azure environments. We are incredibly excited to add Sol-Tec’s award-winning Azure expertise to our market leading Modern Workplace and Dynamic 365 practices, further solidifying IT Lab as one of the UK’s leading Microsoft focused cloud services and solutions providers. Having the ability to deliver the functionality that Microsoft cloud centric services can provide, particularly at this pivotal and challenging time is key for our clients.”
This is the fourth acquisition since private equity firm ECI Partners acquired a majority stake in IT Lab in 2016. ECI typically invests in growth businesses valued up to £200m.
Nik Topham, founder of Sol-Tec will continue to focus on the commercial growth of Sol-Tec as well as the ongoing integration between the two businesses, while working with Tim Wallis, IT Lab Group Chief Digital Officer to further build on the group’s close relationship with Microsoft.
Paul Collins, CTO of Sol-Tec will oversee the continued technical development of the group’s Azure practice, working alongside Nick Isherwood, IT Lab’s Product & Service Director for Azure to infuse Sol-Tec’s capability and the Velocity Landing Zone into the wider IT Lab group.
Commenting on future transactions, Peter Sweetbaum commented, “As a group we will continue to look for exceptional businesses to become part of the group. The common theme with the deals we have done since ECI’s investment, including Perspective Risk, Content and Code, Mirus and now Sol-Tec, is that we have consistently acquired exceptional businesses with amazing teams – all of which want to do great things.”
ENDS
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About IT Lab: http://www.itlab.com
IT Lab is an award-winning technology services and solutions provider and is currently ranked within the top 5 European and top 50 global MSPs. The company has almost 50 years of experience delivering services to SME, mid-market and enterprise organisations, focused on helping its ambitious clients leverage technology to succeed. By focusing on the Microsoft Three Clouds, IT Lab helps its clients transform the way they work, evolve how they operate, secure their data and environment and ultimately support their users in being successful in all that they do. IT Lab provides 24/7 IT support, Modern Workplace services and solutions, Azure and private cloud services, Dynamics 365 implementation and support, strategic consulting, technology transformation and change projects. IT Lab is one of the largest MSPs in the UK, employing more than 750 people across offices in London, Manchester, Milton Keynes, Reading and Cape Town, South Africa.
About Sol-Tec: https://www.sol-tec.com/
Sol-Tec is one of Microsoft’s largest Azure partners in the UK. Headquartered in Reading with people working across the country, Sol-Tec has been delivering technology solutions to Public and Private Sector organisations since 1992. It has a raft of Microsoft Gold competencies to its name and holds the “Windows Server and SQL Server Migration to Microsoft Azure Advanced” Specialisation. Recognised in Microsoft’s 2019 Partner of the Year Awards for providing outstanding solutions and services in Azure, Sol-Tec delivers innovative, Microsoft Cloud-based solutions to its customers.
