Cloud services company set for expansion with £4m investment from BGF

Skyscape Cloud Services Limited (Skyscape), the leading provider of cloud infrastructure services to the UK public sector, today announced that it has secured a £4m investment from BGF, the independent company established to help Britain’s growing businesses.  BGF will take a minority stake in the business and the investment will be used to accelerate Skyscape’s growth in the UK public sector market.

Skyscape was founded in May 2011 by successful entrepreneur Jeff Thomas (Chairman) and two experienced businessmen Phil Dawson (CEO) and Simon Hansford (CTO). The company’s head office is in Farnborough, Hampshire, and it currently employs 45 people.

Skyscape is experiencing an impressive growth rate of 20% per month and is forecast to deliver Annualised Monthly Recurring Revenue of c.£10m. The business has achieved great success to date, winning a number of high-profile contracts directly with public sector organisations, including the Cabinet Office, Home Office, HMRC and MOD.  Skyscape also provides cloud services to other central government departments as well as a growing number of local authorities and independent government organisations.

Phil Dawson, CEO, Skyscape commented: “BGF is the ideal investment partner to support the growth of our assured cloud infrastructure business which is dedicated to helping UK government to achieve its digital agenda of delivering better, user-centric public services through more affordable and agile IT.  BGF’s investment will enhance the capacity, scale and robustness of our platform and will enable us to develop our customer service propositions. The investment will also help to accelerate our offering into healthcare, local government and research/higher education.”

James Austin, BGF commented: “We are very pleased to be backing Phil and the team at Skyscape.  This is a young, dynamic business that is growing rapidly due to its unique cloud service offering to the developing public sector market. Skyscape is a business of significant scale, strengthened by an impressive management team with the ambition to grow the business in line with the government’s desire for wider adoption of cloud-based services.  It is an exciting moment to be partnering with the company as it embarks on the next stage of its growth story.”

Capitalising on the government shift to cloud computing which forms a key part of government ICT strategy, Skyscape is a market leader in the provision of assured cloud solutions to the UK public sector and has made significant investment in designing a cloud platform that is specifically tailored to meet the needs of this market. The business is currently focused mainly on central government departments, supporting more than 70 projects, across 38 customer organisations engaging through over 100 partners.

Skyscape focuses on providing assured cloud services in a more agile, secure and cost-effective manner.  Its customers are able to eliminate the need for costly hardware or managed hosting services as well as benefit from simple hourly pricing and no initial set-up fees. This genuine pay-by-the-hour service delivers significant cost savings for Skyscape’s customers, who are able to turn servers off during evenings and weekends, or alternatively, rapidly scale services at times of peak demand.