Mergers and Acquisitions, MSP

MSP Funding: Amazon AWS, Microsoft Azure, Google Cloud Partner Claranet Receives $103 Million Investment

Claranet, a European MSP and hosting provider, has received a US$103 million (£80 million) minority stake investment from Tikehau Capital, an asset management and investment group.

Claranet, led by CEO Charles Nasser (pictured above), has multi-cloud MSP expertise that stretches across Amazon Web Services (AWS), Google Cloud Platform and Microsoft Azure. The company also works closely with Asigra for enterprise cloud backup. Founded in 1996, Clarnet has annual revenues of about US$283 million (£220 million). On a constant currency basis, revenues have increased threefold in four years.

Tikehau Capital says the investment will allow Claranet to "seize market opportunities," though specific details, priorities and focus areas were not disclosed. ChannelE2E couldn't determine valuation levels since Claranet didn't disclose the percentage stake that Tikehau acquired.

From ISP to MSP & DevOps Expert

Originally an ISP, Claranet transformed into an MSP with DevOps and public cloud expertise. This is the second MSP with DevOps expertise to receive a buyout or investment deal in recent days. The other was Strut Digital, which Deloitte has acquired.

Claranet is headquartered in London and operates in seven European countries and Brazil. The company has over 1,300 employees and delivers its services to over 6,000 customers across the UK, France, Germany, Spain, Portugal, Italy, the Netherlands, Claranet says. The company has grown both organically and through acquisition.

Joe Panettieri

Joe Panettieri is co-founder & editorial director of MSSP Alert and ChannelE2E, the two leading news & analysis sites for managed service providers in the cybersecurity market.