London, 24 July 2018: Arkessa, the leading Internet-of-Things (“IoT”) managed services provider announced today that it has completed a management buyout backed by ECI Partners. Arkessa enables Enterprises to develop and optimise their businesses by helping them adopt, integrate and scale IoT enabled services.
Founded in Cambridge in 2009, Arkessa’s goal is to ‘future proof’ customers’ connections to the IoT. Since pioneering the aggregation of multiple mobile networks and technologies into a single managed service, Arkessa now sells software and services to IoT solution providers around the world.
Led by Andrew Orrock, CEO, John Freeman, CTO, and Phil McDermott, CCO, Arkessa operates in a large and rapidly growing market, driven by increasing penetration of ‘smart’ or connected devices as the falling cost of chipsets and the emergence of soft and embedded SIM technologies make it economically viable to connect more and more applications. Analysts estimate there will be 125 billion connected devices by 2030, up from 27 billion in 2017.[ref]
Arkessa’s leading technology solutions serve the market through innovative high-growth customers and global partners such as Fujitsu, Siemens and Avnet. These market leaders address a wide variety of sectors and applications including smart metering, logistics, smart cities, industrial, healthcare, connected cars and many more.
Andrew Orrock, CEO of Arkessa, said:“Arkessa operates in a thrilling market where our international customers and partners are experiencing strong growth underpinned by the explosion in demand for connected devices and services across every sector. We are delighted to partner with ECI, who have an exceptional track record in TMT and knowledge of the IoT market. It is the perfect time to capitalise on Arkessa’s leadership in IoT, fuel our international growthand accelerate bringing new technologies to market.”
Paul McCreadie, Partner at ECI Partners, commented: “Andrew and the team have built a fast growing and highly resilient business with strong market demand, high-quality revenue streams and exceptional customer loyalty. We are very excited about Arkessa’s prospects and look forward to working with the team to help them take full advantage of the fantastic market growth opportunity.”
About ECI
ECI Partners is the partner of choice for mid-sized growth businesses in the UK. It has an unrivalled track record in this space. Since 1990, ECI has achieved:
ECI is currently investing its tenth fund and recently announced the first and final closing of its eleventh fund at the hard cap of £700m. The fund was raised in 80 days and was significantly oversubscribed.
Our investment focus
With offices in London and Manchester, ECI invests in management buyouts, buy-ins and acquisition finance deals of growth companies valued between £20 million and £150 million. We focus on technological and market disruption as well as long-term structural trends in the TMT, business & financial services, and consumer sectors.
ECI Partners has a strong track record backing TMT and technology enabled businesses. Recent successful exited investments in this area include CarTrawler, Wireless Logic, Fourth and XLN. Current investments in this sector include Make it Cheaper, the UK’s leading business price comparison service (invested in 2017), Edenhouse, the UK’s largest independent SAP specialist (2017), MiQ, a leading global analytics technology company (2017), Imagesound, the leading supplier of audio and screen media (2016), online home insurance provider, Avantia (2014), and Auction Technology Group, operator of online marketplaces (2014).
ECI Partners currently manages approximately £1.7 billion on behalf of our investors.
Learn more at www.ecipartners.com