Adapt’s footprint expands northwards

Adapt has acquired Sleek, the Leeds-based cloud hosting provider that serves high-profile brands including Pizza Express and Ordnance Survey. As a result of the deal, Adapt has accelerated its organic growth by gaining more than 20 enterprise customers, a team of 20 highly skilled technical staff and a strategic footprint in the north of England.

Existing Sleek customers, who already take advantage of the provider’s managed private, public and hybrid cloud models, now have the option to add further scale to their services with access to Adapt’s wider portfolio of managed services, real-time management portal (aMP) and award-winning enterprise Virtual Data Centre (eVDC) platform.

Adapt and Sleek share near-identical values in terms of service quality, technical excellence, customer focus and culture, helping make the deal a quick and smooth process.

In terms of synergy between the two organisations,Stewart Smythe, CEO of Adapt, cites purity of proposition as the key. “Both organisations are about delivering the highest quality infrastructure, wrapped in an exceptional support layer. Our shared vision is perfect for those organisations who see IT as a strategic asset that must contribute to their competitive advantage and bottom line.”

Ryan McCarry, managing director at Sleek, added: “We admire the way Adapt has developed infrastructure designed to serve the needs of the mid-tier and enterprise market. It is a credible, knowledgeable provider with quality service values like our own that make it stand out in the sector and our customers are excited about the opportunity it offers. It will accelerate growth in our region, consolidate our position and further develop our reputation for quality cloud services.”

Smythe makes it clear this acquisition is the opposite of the brash buy-and-build-strategies being adopted in the sector. He said: “Sleek enhances what we already offer to customers and is a very natural fit. The acquisition broadens Adapt’s existing IaaS proposition with accessible entry-level cloud services; for Sleek it’s an opportunity to deliver scale choice to its customers without compromising on the account management and service quality that they’ve come to expect.

Our combined business represents a real alternative for fast-growing companies looking for more than transactional cloud services, who require a deeper level of support and want an alternative to ‘live chat’ as a method of talking to their hosting partner.”

Smythe maintains the majority of Adapt’s mid-term growth will be organic, but doesn’t rule out the possibility of future acquisitions, provided they offer expertise and capabilities that match thecompany’s existing vision for service excellence and operational purity. Last year Adapt acquired Cardiff-based eLINIA to enhance its position within the UK managed services marketplace.