Goldman Sachs takes £43m stake in AppSense

INVESTMENT bank Goldman Sachs has taken a minority stake in a Warrington-based technology business AppSense after investing $70m (£43m).

The firm, founded in 1999 by Charles Sharland, specialises in what it calls “user virtualisation”, a system which lets users access their work desktops remotely from laptops and smartphones. 

Goldman Sachs, one of the world’s most influential investment banks, has also recently invested $450m in social networking site Facebook.

AppSense says it is cost effective for large organisations because they can separate users from operating systems and applications in a way that allows them to be moved to different hardware – which typically happens when a business upgrades its computers.

The company, based at Daresbury Business Park, said it will use the cash to push its established position in a new market which is expected to be worth more than £1bn in the coming years.

Sales grew by 60% to almost £29m last year and staff numbers jumped 43% to 285. It plans to add another 150 staff and is investing in predicted growth in Europe, the Middle East and Africa.

It has around 4,000 customers, including the BT Group, United Airlines, and Royal Bank of Scotland.

The company is led by New York-based Darron Antill, pictured, who was appointed chief operating officer last year after Mr Sharland took on the chairman’s role.

Pete Perrone, managing director at Goldman Sachs, will join the Appsense board.
He said: “With the increased mobility of the workforce and the need to be able to access information from any device,  AppSense’s strong customer traction, history of innovative solutions in desktop computing, and the record growth it has experienced over the past two years further solidified our decision to invest in the company.”

Darron Antill, added: “We are delighted by the level of support AppSense has received from Goldman Sachs and appreciate the magnitude of what this investment will allow us to do. Namely, to continue our expansion and maintain our role as market leader in the user virtualization space.” 

Ernst & Young’s transaction support team in Manchester provided financial and tax due diligence to Goldman Sachs, led by partner Richard Harding and assistant director, Stuart Thwaites.