BGF announces successful exit of HeleCloud

BGF, the UK and Ireland’s most active investor, has announced a successful exit of HeleCloud, a leading independent AWS Premier Consulting Partner, following its acquisition by SoftwareONE Holding AG, a global provider of end-to-end software and Cloud technology solutions.

Founded in 2016, HeleCloud offers next generation Cloud-native managed services to support customers on their digital transformation journey to the AWS Cloud platform. The business serves EMEA markets from three locations across Europe: the UK, the Netherlands, and Bulgaria.

BGF has invested £3 million in HeleCloud since 2018 to accelerate the company’s organic and acquisitive growth strategy. During the investment hold period, BGF’s funding has facilitated HeleCloud’s ambitious buy and build strategy which saw it acquire leading Dutch AWS partner, OlinData in 2019, followed by DataStork, a Cloud Software Engineering and AI/ML services company, based in Sofia, Bulgaria, in 2020.

The acquisitions helped to realise HeleCloud’s ambition to be the leading Public Cloud enabler for European businesses and to empower the Cloud revolution by providing the skills, know-how, tools, and operational capabilities for enterprises and midmarket organisations on the AWS platform.

“BGF’s funding has been instrumental in helping us to scale rapidly in a relatively short period of time. The partnership has enabled us to make important strategic acquisitions, boost our services portfolio, expand into further European territories, and develop new Cloud capabilities. BGF has always been very supportive of the leadership team, and our strategy, which has helped tremendously on this journey.

Dob Todorov, CEO and Chief Cloud Officer

“Moving forward, HeleCloud is now in a strong position to continue to expand our presence globally. SoftwareONE will give HeleCloud the opportunity to operate at scale and it is the ideal platform for enabling customers of all sizes worldwide to benefit from cloud by using HeleCloud’s repeatable success patterns and accelerators for cloud adoption.”

Alex Snodgrass, investor at BGF, said: “HeleCloud – under the leadership of CEO Dob Todorov and the rest of the management team – has experienced impressive growth during our investment period. We’re delighted to have seen our funding used to make a series of successful acquisitions which has boosted HeleCloud’s international reach and service capabilities. BGF has a strong track record in scaling digital transformation businesses, and we are delighted to complete another successful exit in the space.”

The sale of HeleCloud to SoftwareONE marks BGF’s third exit this month following the sale of BHR Group to Framatome, a leading international nuclear energy company; and BGF’s exit of The Clearway Group following a new investment by Next Wave Partners.

HeleCloud and BGF were advised on the deal by Alantra (Corporate Finance), FieldFisher (Legals) and Wilson Partners (Tax).