QBS Software has made its third META [Middle East, Turkey and Africa] acquisition inside 18 months, in a move its CEO says shows “we listen to what our partners and publishers need, and then do it”.
The $1bn-revenue chasing, London-based software delivery platform, which ranked 12th in IT Channel Oxygen’s recent 50 Must-Know UK IT Distributors, has acquired South African ‘long tail’ enterprise software distributor Titus Corp.
QBS already has over 100 staff in South Africa following its April acquisition of Johannesburg-based cybersecurity VAD Maxtec. It entered the META region last June when it acquired Turkish VAD InfoNet.
Talking to IT Channel Oxygen, CEO Dave Stevinson revealed that QBS expects its SADC (South African Development Community) revenues to hit $50m in its next financial year.
Many of QBS’ vendors need “significant help” expanding across Africa, he added.
“We are investing in that capability to empower them,” Stevinson said.
“In the last six years QBS has expanded our publisher count, services and geographic reach, and grown our revenues over ten times. I put this down to an ability to listen deeply to what our partners and publishers need, and then do it.”
The latest acquisition comes after QBS last month signed its 12,000th vendor and in October took on two high-profile non-execs in the form of Alex Tatham and Kevin James.
Talking Titus
Counting Minitab, ThinkCell, JetBrains and Bluebeam among its vendors, Titus serves 220 authorised partners across SADC.
It has 10 employees based in the Johannesburg head office and a network of sales and pre-sales representatives across SADC.
In a canned statement, Raldo Loots, Managing Director of Titus Corporation, said:
“Joining QBS, the global leader in software delivery feels like the ideal platform to scale Titus as we seek to grow our publisher base significantly in the SADC region.
“It is exciting to work alongside Dave and his team – as together we will collaborate with our partner network to solve the most important problems that large enterprises are facing in consolidating their long tail of software publishers.”
