4net accelerate growth plans with investment deal with YFM

Enterprise UC Contact Centre Specialist 4net Technologies, have announced an investment deal with YFM Equity Partners (YFM) for a minority stake as part of their ongoing growth plans.

YFM, a specialist private equity fund manager, has made an investment into 4net to support the continued growth of the business through new product and market development.

4net Technologies has entered a rapid growth phase winning some major new contracts, including supplying hosted cloud contact centre services for several UK Central Government departments.

Nigel Owens, Investment Director at YFM said:

“4net has established an impressive reputation in providing innovative solutions to its corporate and government customer base, which has fuelled impressive growth.  We look forward to working with the team in the next stage of its development.”

4net have also announced that Iain McKenzie will join the business as Non-Executive Chairman. Iain’s role will be to Chair the board and provide advice and support to help further accelerate 4net’s growth. His experience and obvious knowledge of 4net’s market and partners are ideal for this role. Iain is an industry heavyweight having previously founded and built several businesses, including Mettoni Group, which he sold to Enghouse in 2010. Following this, Iain ran the Enghouse EMEA/ASIA business for 5 years growing revenues from c$30m to over $100m including integrating multiple acquisitions.

Manchester based 4net Technologies, one of a limited number of Avaya top-level Diamond Edge partners in the UK, was founded in 2005 by Richard Pennington, Michael Jervis, Frank Jennings and Steve Tyrrell.  They will retain the majority shareholding and continue to run the business with the same management team as before but now with the backing of YFM and the support of Iain McKenzie.

Iain McKenzie commented: “I have known Richard and the team for some time and have been impressed with the significant progress the business has made over the last few years.  I very much look forward to working with them on their next phase of growth.”

Richard Pennington, 4net’s Managing Director said:

“Our revenues have broadly doubled in the last two years, supported by some significant customer wins, and I expect further strong growth in the next few years. These wins included a contract for a major utility providing hosted contact centre services to approximately 3,000 seats and a significant Central Government contract through the RM1045 public sector framework, utilising our own 4net Agile Cloud service called ‘Antenna’®. We have around 12,000 users under contract already and expect to win business from several other Government departments off the back of it.”

Richard continued:

“4net’s strategy is unlikely to change significantly in partnership with YFM; we will remain focussed on Cloud and Managed Service, UC and contact centre solutions for UK enterprises and public sector organisations, and continue to distinguish ourselves with our customer service (as evidenced by an NPS of 89%) and direct sales. Our immediate priority will be to manage the on-going rollout of our major contracts, as well as land several other good-sized opportunities that are in the pipeline.”

Richard concludes:

 “The investment from YFM allows us to accelerate the next phase of growth and gives us the opportunity to capitalise on the significant success and progress we have made in serving customers across Enterprise, Public and Government sectors. It will also allow us to accelerate the development of intellectual property that adds value to our customers’ digital transformation strategies and will provide us with the opportunity to enhance services and possibly pursue relevant acquisitions.”