Pure Technology Group on the verge of acquisition following record year

VAR claims to be on course to breaking the £40m revenue barrier in its current fiscal year

Pure Technology Group is set to make an acquisition within the next few weeks after reporting a record financial year, according to COO Cliff Fox.

The Leeds-based VAR saw revenue increase 23 per cent year on year to £27.8m for the 12 months ending 31 May 2018, closing off the second year of the three-year growth plan it outlined in 2016.

The reseller is targeting £40m turnover for the third year of its plan.

Fox told CRN that this revenue target will be achieved by organic growth and through acquisitions, of which one will be made in the next few weeks.

"In terms of our organic growth, we have been well ahead of the modelled growth that we forecast," he said.

"The harder part has been the acquisition piece, and we devoted a lot more time to that in the last six to eight months.

"In the next six weeks we'll acquire another business."

The VAR set out a three-year growth plan in 2016, and at the time said that part of its growth strategy involved making one acquisition per year.

Pure Technology also opened a London office earlier this year, extending its presence south.

"We have several aims on the acquisition piece. One is around enterprise network, one is around enterprise cloud and the other one is geographic expansion into Lancashire and the South," said Fox, who could not comment on where the acquisition target is located.

The HP, Lenovo and Huawei partner stated that its London expansion, inclusion in the government's G-Cloud 10 framework, and investing in its offerings have led to the record revenue.

It will launch its newest offerings pureVR and pureIoT next month and early next year, respectively, and claimed that these will play a "crucial role" in strengthening its portfolio.

Fox admitted that these offerings have not been brought about by customer requests, but rather where Pure sees the future of the market.

"We are not seeing the demand; people aren't knocking on our door looking for pureVR," he said.

"We are doing this because we think it is the right thing to do because it is where the market is going to go.

"So rather than wait for customer demand and mainstream adoption, we are trying to pioneer a little bit into that area because we think it has huge potential.

"The few customers we've been in discussion with before launch are pretty excited with what they can achieve with it."