Claranet acquires Dutch hosting provider NovaData

Claranet has declared itself Western Europe’s largest mid-market cloud service provider, after snapping up Dutch rival NovaData.

The terms of the deal have not been disclosed, but Claranet claims the move will boost its staff numbers to around 800 employees and that it stands to generate £135 million in annual revenue as a result.

NovaData was founded in 2008 and focuses on the deployment of cloud services to mid-sized firms and enterprises, particularly those in the healthcare, business services and manufacturing verticals.

Claranet boasts offices in the UK, France, Germany, Spain and the Netherlands already, and said it plans to use the deal to expand its portfolio of cloud services.

Namely, its managed hosting and managed application offerings.

The deal is the latest in a long line of acquisitions for Claranet, who – in the past 18 months alone – has snapped up UK hosting provider Star (2012) and Portuguese firm Echiron (2014), as well as French players Typhon (2012) and Grita (2014).

Charles Nasser, CEO of the Claranet Group, said the firm’s recent run of acquisitions are an important part of its overall growth strategy.

“NovaData is the third acquisition we’ve made in 2014 – which confirms our ambition to become the leading independent provider of managed services in Europe,” Nasser added.

Meanwhile, Ruud Joosten, managing director of Claranet Benelux BV, suggested the acquisition of NovaData had been a long time coming.

"We have been in discussion with NovaData about this acquisition for some time,” he said.

"By joining together two highly successful service providers that have collaborated together on several customer projects already, we expect our customers to benefit from our enlarged portfolios immediately."