Ignition launches into Nordics with Cylance and Bitglass after hitting £14m revenue

UK-based security distributor takes first steps into mainland Europe

Ignition Technology has launched a Nordics operation after seeing revenue hit £14m in its last financial year.

In its third year of trading, Ignition saw sales jump 133 per cent to £14m.

The distributor has now moved into the Nordics with end-point protection player Cylance, and cloud access security broker vendor Bitglass.

Sean Remnant, chief strategy officer at Ignition, told CRN that Ignition has found a gap in the market working with next-generation players.

"It is about keeping the channel relevant on the journey to a cloud and services-based model," he said.

"It takes a different approach to be able to take emerging technology and evangelise it, and also spot the trends for those new areas.

"It is very hard for those larger distributors to be able to do the smaller vendors justice."

The launch into the Nordics comes as Ignition sets its sights on hitting £24m in its current financial year.

Remnant explained that the expansion has come as a result of demand from the vendors that Ignition carries in the UK.

"We said we would never go into those regions unless we could find the right people," he said.

"It is a relatively large leap to go into a new region, so we have to do it with people we trust and we have to make sure we have the vendors that are right for those regions.

"In the last couple of months that has come together, and also all our vendor partners are saying they would love to have someone with Ignition's mind set in those regions."

Mikko Vaajamo, who has had spells with Exclusive Networks and Computerlinks, will head up the Nordics operation as managing director.

He said: "Lots of integrators and service providers in the Nordics and Baltics region are eager to move forward with a 'clean table' approach to next-generation, cloud-based technology solutions and this is perfect for the portfolio and market approach of Ignition.

"There are great commercial opportunities for reseller and vendor partners alike and I'm excited about the opportunities to expand this business in key Nordic territories and, in time, to others throughout the whole Northern Europe region."