Cloud application solution provider Cloud Sherpas has acquired Stoneburn Software Services, a U.K.-based consulting and IT services firm, in a move that will help Cloud Sherpas expand its European business.
Cloud Sherpas, the fastest growing solution provider on this year's CRN Fast Growth 150, provides a range of cloud broker and integration services, primarily around Google Apps and Salesforce.com's cloud CRM applications.
While Cloud Sherpas already has a presence in the U.K. with some 70 employees and dozens of enterprise clients, that business is largely focused on services around Salesforce.com applications. Stoneburn Software's services are built around Google's cloud applications, giving Cloud Sherpas the opportunity to expand that side of its business in the U.K. and into Western Europe.
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"Stoneburn has a great reputation with Google and a great reputation with their customers," said David Northington, Cloud Sherpas CEO, in an interview with CRN. "This extends our U.K. footprint."
Cloud Sherpas will leverage Stoneburn to expand its presence in other parts of Western Europe as well, Northington said. Stoneburn "is mostly in the U.K., but our aspirations are beyond the U.K. I think [Stoneburn] is a very solid foundation and good steppingstone" to the rest of Europe, he said.
IDC projects that companies in Western Europe will consume nearly $18 billion in public cloud services by 2016. Western Europe already accounts for about 10 percent of Cloud Sherpas' sales.
The acquisition of London-based Stoneburn also provides Cloud Sherpas with a way to expand its presence in several vertical markets. Stoneburn has numerous customers in the retail, media, manufacturing and transportation/logistics industries.
Financial terms of the acquisition weren't disclosed. Stoneburn co-founder Ciaran Cosgrove will take on the post of vice president of Cloud Sherpas' U.K. Google business unit. Cosgrove's partner, co-founder Nazir Ul-Ghani, is now vice president of U.K. sales for the Cloud Sherpas Google division.
PUBLISHED SEPT. 9, 2013
