Kerv has kickstarted its journey to become a B Corp, it revealed as it announced it has swapped private equity backers.
LDC today announced it has exited the Genesys, Microsoft and Citrix partner, which was formed during the pandemic and now turns over £100m.
LDC helped create the London-based contact centre and cloud specialist in July 2020 when it backed founders Alastair Mills and Mike Ing to fuse three cloud-based MSPs in the form of Metaphor IT, DoubleEdge Professional Services and Foehn.
Today it announced it has exited the investment at an IRR [internal rate of return] of 45%, with Bridgepoint Development Capital stepping in for a majority stake.
During their three years together, Kerv grew revenues from £20m to £100m, EBITDA from £3m to £20m and headcount from 100 to 700, LDC claimed.
Bidding for B Corp
Kerv claims to have a focus on diversity and inclusion, with 35% of new job roles filled by women (surpassing the UK average of 20% for women in technology).
It is “also on a journey to become a certified B Corp”, it added in reference to the notoriously exacting social and environmental accreditation that only a select few UK MSPs and resellers (including Natilik and Cloud Technology Solutions) have gained.
The development comes after £440m-revenue IT solutions provider boxxe revealed to IT Channel Oxygen that it chose not to go through with B Corp despite passing its assessment.
Find out where Kerv ranked in IT Channel Oxygen’s Oxygen 250 here
Aylesh Patel, Partner and Head of South at LDC, said:
“We first backed the team at a time when many investors had paused activity during the pandemic, and we’ve been there with follow-on funding to support acquisitions as Kerv kept growing. This is a great example of what a private equity partnership can achieve when investors adopt a flexible investment strategy and it’s been a pleasure to support the team over the last few years. I’m looking forward to being part of the next chapter.”
Mills added:
“In 2020 we had an ambition to create a technology business that truly put customers and employees first, recognising this is the key to long-term, sustainable growth, and I’m proud to say we’ve achieved that goal. LDC understood our vision and got behind us from the start. Over the past three and a half years, they’ve provided additional funding to support acquisitions and helped us to scale significantly, all without losing sight of what makes us special – our people. Kerv is still less than four years old and so I’m really excited to see what’s possible with the support of both LDC and Bridgepoint in this next chapter.”
