Cisco Gold partner Conscia breaks into German market with xevIT buyout

 

Danish VAR Conscia has broken into the German market through acquiring €40m-revenue player xevIT.

XevIT is a Gold-level Cisco partner with 110 staff based in Ettlingen, southwest Germany. It has also developed its own comms solutions for the heathcare sector.

Conscia said the acquisition is an "important" step that brings it closer to being one of Cisco's leading European security and IT infrastructure partners.

The Danish firm claims that it has quadrupled its revenues in the last five years from DKK 500m (€70m) to DKK 2bn.

"We are already a market leader in Scandinavia, the Netherlands, and Slovenia, and with xevIT we will strengthen our position even further in the European security and IT infrastructure market, which is a key strategic priority for Conscia," said Conscia CEO Claus Thorsgaard.

"Over the past two to three years, we have made very significant investments in expanding our portfolio of security solutions. We now have a 24/7 security operations centre (SOC), and with xevIT as part of the Conscia group, we will be able to better serve the German customers with these types of solutions."

In a joint statement, xevIT's four founders Jochen Faas, Stephan Kirchmann, Frank Nagel and Klaus Lorenz, said: "xevIT and Conscia have many commonalities, both culturally and operationally in the way we go to market. In addition, we complement each other's high-level technical competencies very well. We have specialised in IT innovation and digitalisation for the healthcare sector, and we look forward to becoming part of Conscia's ‘network of knowledge' strategy as well as being able to deliver our core solutions to the customers within Conscia's current markets."

Conscia changed owners in March this year after private equity firm Axcel sold the company to Nordic Capital.

In an interview with Danish media site Børsen, Frederik Näslund, a partner at Nordic Capital, suggested that it will look to sell Conscia once it has grown to DKK 5bn in revenues.

He said that the firm will either be sold off to another private equity buyer, it will IPO, or it will be bought out by a US player looking to expand its presence in Europe.

"But it is difficult to say which of the opportunities is most likely," he added in the interview.

The acquisition marks the latest in a string of expansion moves for Conscia as it continues to consolidate Cisco partners across Europe. The Danish player expanded into the Netherlands in 2017 through acquiring Gouda-based player Vosko - another Gold-level Cisco partner offering networking, unified comms and security.

Conscia acquired another Cisco Gold partner, this time Slovenian provider NIL, earlier this year. It also bought out Netsafe in Sweden and Pundit in Norway in 2015 and 2016 respectively as it looked to become a northern European powerhouse.

The Nordics have been a hotbed for aggressive international expansion strategies over the last few years. Swedish firm Advania has plans to double its revenues to $600m as part of an ambitious buy-and-build strategy across the Nordics. €3.8bn-revenue giant Atea, meanwhile, recently announced plans to move out of the Nordics for the first time through a huge acquisition.

Consultancy heavyweights Tieto and EVRY are in the middle of a $1.5bn merger while reseller Dustin has expanded into the Netherlands through M&A.

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