Fast-growing software group makes maiden acquisition

Nottingham-based software firm NoBlue2 has bought Hinckley-based BrightBridge Solutions to create one of Europe’s largest Oracle NetSuite partners.

The combined business has approximately 130 employees and revenues of over £16m. The deal will see 46 BrightBridge employees join the enlarged group.

NoBlue2 was created through the recent (July) merger of NoBlue and Elevate2 following investment received from FPE Capital (FPE), the specialist software and services-focused lower mid-market growth investor.

Ian Irwin, CEO of NoBlue2 said: “BrightBridge is a well-regarded organisation and the people joining us will be a credit to the entire NoBlue2 team. I’m delighted to welcome them and their customers – we’re looking forward to working together to help customers to achieve their goals. We’re focused on strengthening our relationships further, delivering existing – and new – products and services to customers, and expanding our reach to deliver more innovative solutions to ambitious businesses.”

Co-founder and sales and marketing director of BrightBridge, Ian Robertson, added: “The BrightBridge vision has always been to be a true partner to our customers to ensure the best return on their investment and to look after the people we employ; ultimately, they drive our success. Therefore, any acquisition had to be a perfect fit to guarantee customer satisfaction and staff retention for both our NetSuite and Microsoft teams – I’m delighted that we identified FPE’s investment and NoBlue2 as just that.

“By uniting our experience, skills and passion for designing and delivering ERP systems, NoBlue2 will be a remarkable knowledgebase for customers. We aim to use our robust position to cast our net wider and deeper to help more businesses and non-profits across Europe to capitalise on using the very latest in business technologies. This is great news for everyone – we can continue to deliver projects to BrightBridge’s high standard and be part of an exciting growth story.”

Dan Walker, partner at FPE, added: “FPE is delighted to have completed this significant acceleration of our investment in NoBlue2 through this acquisition of BrightBridge so soon after our initial investment. We have used our specialist focus on this sector to identify this rapid pathway to creating the leading European Oracle NetSuite partner. We are ambitious to continue an acquisitive and organic growth strategy in this sector and provide our customers with a range of business applications and services to aid their digital transformation.”