UC firm snaps up B2B reseller for a “significant” undisclosed fee marking entry into B2B channel
B2B dealer Sunrise Associates has been sold to UC and cloud service provider Six Degrees for a “significant” undisclosed fee.
The deal marks an entry for Six Degrees, headed up by former SpiriTel CEO Alastair Mills, into the B2B market for the first time and now has a ready-made base close to 10,000 connections (across all networks – an average of 40 connections per customer), with an ARPU of around £54.
Sunrise Associates was formed in 2009 by managing director James Evans, who will remain with the company along with the 25 staff working at its office near Milton Keynes. The firm has now been dual-branded as ‘Sunrise – a Six Degrees Group Company’, and will rebrand entirely during next year.
Boosting capabilities
Evans told Mobile News he had been exploring opportunities to boost capabilities at the firm for two years, and had begun talks with Six Degrees a year ago. Evans says it was the quality of Sunrise’s base and its ability to “punch above its weight” in signing “enviable” accounts, such as private equity firm KKR and Premier Oil, which attracted Six Degrees.
“They’ve bought us for our IP,” said Evans. “They have no IP or skill set around mobile capability and wanted to buy someone that was specialist in this market, were top of their game and work- ing with large clients.
“There are some great selling opportunities, both from their side and from ours.”
Six Degrees currently works with some of the UK’s largest organisations, such as Barclays, JP Morgan and the Bank of England providing numerous services across its portfolio, which includes data centres and cloud hosting. The firm has a turnover of close to £100 million and had an EBITDA of £23 million in its last financial year.