UKCloud secures £25m investment to support multi-cloud public sector push

UKCloud has secured £25m in additional investment to fund the public sector-focused cloud provider’s continued efforts to diversify its service offerings and tap into the growing demand for multi-cloud deployments.

The firm has spent the past couple of years rolling out services and initiatives to cater for the needs of specific groups of public sector users within the healthcare, life sciences and defence space, and is now in the midst of building out its multi-cloud proposition too.

The £25m investment is coming via private equity house, Digital Alpha Advisors, which boasts close ties with networking giant Cisco, the technology of which is widely used across UKCloud’s datacentres.

The investment will go towards building out its multi-cloud technology platform and expanding the team of people responsible for overseeing its operation, confirmed UKCloud.

Simon Hansford, CEO of UKCloud, said Digital Alpha Advisors’ investment in the company is proof its decision to pursue a “differentiated business model” was the right one.

“[It] gives us tremendous potential to scale, accelerate our growth in the UK public sector saving taxpayer money and driving better insights for decades to come,” he said.

“Importantly, our alignment with Cisco is a force multiplier, enabling our product development and helping us further differentiate from our competitors enabling us to accelerate our investment in sales, marketing, customer experience and new markets.”

On this point, the firm said it plans to draw on Cisco’s association with Digital Alpha Advisors to embark on joint sales and marketing activities with the firm.

Scot Gardner, chief executive of Cisco UK and Ireland, said its deepening working relationship with UKCloud will enable both parties contribute towards accelerating the digital transformation of public sector organisations.

 “We believe that, in collaborating with UKCloud to deliver leading cloud technology solutions, we have the ability to help enable real transformation of essential government services. With unique requirements and extremely diverse operations, digital technology deployed in the sector has to meet the highest standards of security and reliability,” said Gardner.

“Cisco and UKCloud have developed a strong working relationship with the aim of helping to support the UK’s digitisation plans with meaningful business transformation.”

Minister for digital, Margot James, said – from a UK technology market perspective – the investment adds weight to the government’s view that the UK is the “best place” for companies to setup and scale digital businesses.

“This is another vote of confidence in our talented sector and will help us maintain our reputation as the leading destination in Europe for inward investment,” James added.