Cloudreach promises further acquisitions after double swoop

AWS and Azure partner completes second acquisition in seven days

Cloudreach has completed its second acquisition in seven days, snapping up US professional services outfit Emerging Technology Advisors (ETA).

Cloudreach was given the go-ahead to start an M&A spree in February, after it was taken over by private equity giant Blackstone.

A deal for cloud migration specialist Cloudamize was completed last week, and has now been followed up with the acquisition of ETA.

Speaking to CRN Cloudreach head of Europe Chris Bunch said that ETA provides two key capabilities to Cloudreach's portfolio - cloud strategy planning and application modernisation.

"They're both new capabilities for us," he said." The strategy piece, in terms of really getting involved in that early stage and driving that strategy for a customer, is actually a new field for us.

"We've touched on it, but it's not been fully industrialised and repeatable. We quite commonly come in once people have decided they want to move to the cloud to help them work out how to do it, but we want to be involved earlier in the cycle.

"The second is around application modernisation. If you're talking to a large organisation that is looking to close down a number of datacentres and re-architect the content of them in the public cloud, what you'll find is that some apps are not well suited. We've always tried to hire people that prefer to write code than click buttons, but this is genuine development in the cloud."

ETA currently has two offices in Virginia and will work with Cloudreach customers worldwide

While being a relatively small team, with under 20 staff, the firm counts the likes of BP, Time Warner and Netflix among its customer base.

Bunch said Cloudreach's acquisitive streak will continue into 2018, with a particular focus on personnel and software.

"You never quite know exactly when these things will land because the devil is always in the last minute detail," he said.

"We're pretty bullish about things and over the next 12 months you will absolutely see additional acquisitions from Cloudreach. We're interested in smart people and quality software."