UK Cisco partner Systal sells minority stake to PE firm

Glasgow-based MSP sells stake to UKFast and Daisy Wholesale Solutions investor Inflexion

UK Cisco partner Systal has sold a minority stake in the business to private equity firm Inflexion.

Founded in 2008 and based in Glasgow, Systal is a Gold-level Cisco partner offering networking services to customers including Coca-Cola European Partners, WPP and Jones Lang LaSalle.

The investment will be made through Inflexion's lower mid-market fund, Enterprise Fund V, and will be put towards supporting Systal's rapid growth, it claims.

Ranked #207 in CRN's VAR 350, Systal grew revenues by a whopping 82 per cent in its last financial year to £18.7m.

As well as its headquarters in Glasgow, Systal has offices in the US, in Delaware, and in Hong Kong.

Inflexion made a "significant" minority investment in another channel business at the start of the year in the shape of Daisy spin off Digital Wholesale Solutions. The move marked the final step in demerging DWS from the wider Daisy Group.

The PE firm also invested in UK cloud hosting firm UKFast in 2018.

"Inflexion's presence in our key markets of Asia and the US combined with their deep technology understanding make them the ideal partner for Systal as we look to grow our business at home and internationally. We look forward to working together with Inflexion to accelerate our growth," said Neil Nicolson, CEO of Systal.

"There is great opportunity for managed network providers as IT networking migrates to the cloud, leading to a large and growing market for their services. Systal is already well placed to take advantage of this, and we look forward to working with management to further enhance their offering in the UK and overseas," added managing partner of Inflexion, Simon Turner.