FAST-GROWING data management company Onyx has received a £42m cash injection to fund a series of acquisitions.
The Stockton-based business signed the deal with London-based venture capitalist Isis Equity Partners, which paid £27m to buy the company and committed a further £15m to fund strategic acquisitions.
Under the terms of the agreement, the management structure will remain in place, and Onyx chief executive Neil Stephenson admitted he was already looking at potential acquisitions.
The company, which was set up in 1994 and was named Company of the Year 2009 in The Journal’s nebusiness awards, has bought six businesses in the last couple of years and now has 118 staff and more than 2,000 customers nationwide.
But to grow faster and further develop its national profile, Stephenson said the business needed to be restructured.
“You need different capital structures at different times. We had 50 various shareholders and we really needed to simplify that,” he said. “It is a classic development. All the individual guys were acquired by Isis.”
He said that Onyx, which operates from 10 sites including Newcastle, Teesside, London, Glasgow, Edinburgh and Sheffield, will use the funds to continue expanding. It currently has five data centres and six workplace recovery facilities.
“We have acquired a number of times over the last few years and it’s our intention to continue, but at a faster pace,” said Stephenson. “This is a buy and build business.”
