Vitruvian commits to ASP4all Bitbrains

Vitruvian Partners has made a strategic investment in ASP4all Bitbrains. The group is a provider of managed hosting and cloud services in the Netherlands.

PRESS RELEASE

Funds managed by Vitruvian Partners LLP (“Vitruvian”), a European, independent private equity firm, have made a strategic investment in ASP4all Bitbrains (“the Group”). The Group is a leading provider of managed hosting and cloud services in the Netherlands. ASP4all Bitbrains chose to partner with Vitruvian both to accelerate the integration of the two companies following the highly complementary merger of the businesses in January 2014 and also to facilitate international expansion through access to expertise and capital.

Headquartered in Huizen and operating from three further sites in the Netherlands (Assen, Amersfoort and Amstelveen), the Group employs around 180 staff. The Group expects turnover for 2014 to be approximately €40 million. The clientele of ASP4all and Bitbrains includes the Dutch national government, municipal authorities, TNO, Trans Link Systems (the national public transport smartcard), Rabobank, Ahold, Aegon, ING, NN Group, ICS Cards Mirabeau en Wegener.
Vitruvian’s investment will support the development of the Group through organic and acquisitive growth. As a prominent Dutch managed hosting provider, the Group aims to give companies constant access to innovative cloud computing solutions, extending its offers beyond national borders.

Frank van den Belt, CEO of ASP4allBitbrains commented: “In a world where technological innovation takes place on a daily basis, service providers need to excel at re-engineering IT services. There is a clear distinction in the cloud business between volume and value and the latter here relates to complex application hosting. Application hosting and in particular its set-up is where ASP4All Bitbrains excels and the company has built up a substantial market share in this industry. Key important aspects for this are skills, flexibility, high-availability and security. To facilitate our growth internationally, we recognized further investment was necessary, so we searched for a partner with international experience that would support our vision and expansion plans. With access to the capital and expertise that Vitruvian contributes, we will move into the next phase of our growth and international expansion will become possible.”

David Nahama, a founding Partner at Vitruvian, added: “Vitruvian invests in high growth businesses with talented, entrepreneurial management teams. We are pleased to be partnering with directors and management of ASP4all Bitbrains who have significant expertise in the managed hosting and cloud services space and have demonstrated considerable success. The Group has an outstanding executive team and we are delighted to partner with them for the next phase of the Company’s development.”

About ASP4all and Bitbrains
ASP4all and Bitbrains merged in January 2014.
ASP4all provides customized infrastructure management services (IaaS), 24/7 full-service application hosting (PaaS) and online workplace services. ASP4all also aims to provide maximum accessibility and management of business-critical applications in a reliable, secure private cloud environment. The ASP4all brand holds a strong position in the Dutch public and private sector markets.
Bitbrains designs, builds and supports cutting-edge cloud computing solutions for businesses that have extremely high standards for their complex and business-critical IT applications. The brand has extensive expertise in the field of High-Performance Computing, a technology that plays an increasingly important role in analyzing and processing large quantities of data.
ASP4all and Bitbrains are both ISO27001-certified (according to information security standards). ASP4all holds a SOC1 – ISAE3402 type II certificate. Bitbrains holds the SOC2 ISAE3000 certificate. These certificates offer clients and auditors clear proof that the service provider maintains full control of all outsourced processes.

About Vitruvian Partners – www.vitruvianpartners.com
Vitruvian Partners LLP (“Vitruvian”) is an independent private equity firm which specialises in middle market buyouts, growth buyouts and growth capital investments in the United Kingdom and elsewhere in Northern Europe. Vitruvian focuses on investing in ‘dynamic situations’ in industries characterised by growth and change such as business services, technology/internet, media, telecoms, financial services, healthcare and consumer services. In December 2013, Vitruvian announced it has closed the fundraising of its second fund, Vitruvian Investment Partnership II (“VIP II”), at its self-imposed cap of £1 billion ($1.6 billion; €1.2billion).