Colt Technology Services has bought enterprise cloud startup ThinkGrid for an undisclosed sum.
The acquisition will boost Colt's cloud-based services lineup for the indirect channel and adds around 200 resellers and ISVs to its partner community in the UK.
ThinkGrid provides SMEs with the tools and assistance needed to establish or expand a cloud revenue stream. The deal means that ThinkGrid will be able to use Colt's market reach, partner community and existing customer base across Europe while giving ThinkGrid's existing resellers and customers access to Colt's products and services.
In a statement the company said that Colt's channel partners will benefit from ThinkGrid's capabilities of auto-provisioning and fully flexible billing. The company said that ThinkGrid's training programme would facilitate the "development of resellers' cloud capabilities will be rolled out to Colt's indirect sales team and channel partners."
Rob Lovell, chief executive of ThinkGrid said that becoming part of Colt Technology Services would support ThinkGrid's "vision to become the world's leading cloud services enablement platform".
He added: "ThinkGrid will gain access to Colt's 20 state-of-the-art data centre facilities, extended research and development and support resources as well as an opportunity to expand into 22 European countries."
Franois Eloy, executive vice president at Colt said that the SME market for managed services is set to grow at 15 per cent annually during the coming years and that Colt is well positioned to penetrate this market through its indirect channels.
"The acquisition of ThinkGrid further strengthens our position with the addition of a complementary range of cloud-based services," he said.
"We also gain a reseller-oriented management platform and portal which will reduce our time to market across our European markets. This acquisition allows us to extend our channel community to include skilled managed services resellers who will help us to accelerate our growth."
