Cloud contact centres specialist Mission Labs acquired in deal worth potential £46m
Lancashire cloud contact centres business Mission Labs has been acquired in a deal worth a potential £46m.
The Rawtenstall company has been taken over by Gamma Communications, which has a Manchester office.
Gamma said it gives it additional capabilities in the rapidly evolving markets of cloud contact centre and cloud communications.
As a key part of Gamma’s long term growth strategy, it has previously stated an ambition to build on its success in the UK UCaaS (unified communications as a service) market by developing complementary products and routes to market.
Mission Labs is a well established UCaaS technology business which has built a reputation for creating technologically advanced solutions and delivering great service to its customers and partners. The acquisition will enable Gamma to enhance and expand its cloud contact centre (CCaaS) technology.
It is predicted that by the end of 2025, 57% of the UK’s 850,000 contact centre agents will be using a CCaaS solution, compared with 25% currently.
Gamma said it is pleased to be welcoming a talented and experienced team that has succesfully developed and deployed cloud software solutions. This team will work with Gamma’s existing technology team to develop and deliver an exciting roadmap of UCaaS and CCaaS products.
Gamma has been partnering with Mission Labs over the past 18 months on various projects such as PhoneLine+ which is a replacement product for single line customers which will launch shortly.
Mission Labs also brings a well established relationship with Amazon Web Services, where it has been supporting and augmenting the capabilities of Amazon’s contact centre technology with large enterprise customers since 2017. It is believed that this will provide further opportunities across the business market.
Gamma will initially pay £40.2m on a cash free basis to acquire Mission Labs, with up to an additional £6m contingent deferred consideration payable over the next three years assuming certain development milestones are met.
For the year ended March 31, 2020, Mission Labs had (unaudited) revenues of £3.4m ‐ revenues are increasing rapidly. Operating profits (adjusted EBITDA) for the period were £0.4m and the business had unaudited net assets of £2.5m.
Mission Labs has been providing communications platforms and solutions since 2016. It employs more than 90 people and an experienced management team is led by the co‐founders, Damian Hanson and David Hague. They will be remaining with the business and leading their team through the next stage of Mission Labs’ development.
Andrew Taylor, Gamma’s chief executive, said: “The acquisition of Mission Labs is important to Gamma, and provides us with an opportunity to both reinforce and accelerate our UCaaS, CCaaS and digital technology and product capabilities across the group.
“This will enable Gamma to realise both current and future growth opportunities and ensure that we continue to successfully execute against both our immediate and long term commitments.
“On a personal level, and on behalf of everyone at Gamma, we warmly welcome all of Mission Labs’ staff and customers into the Gamma family and we look forward to working with them.”
Damian Hanson said: “We are delighted to become part of the Gamma family and we see this as the next step in the development and continued growth of our business. We believe that we can combine our products, development and commercial teams with those of Gamma to drive the strategy of the business we have built to the next level. It is great to have found a partner with similar ethos and forward thinking vision.”
Stephen Jarman, Simon Nolan, Faizan Nayyar, Andrew Koffman, Rob Maddocks and Stephen Chalcraft at Liverpool and Manchester law firm Bermans, acted on behalf of the shareholders of Mission Labs and in particular long standing clients, Damian Hanson and David Hague. Bird & Bird, the London firm specialised in tech, acted on behalf of Gamma, advised by Neil Blundell, Richie Lamb and Max Latchmore, as well as tax partners Zoe Feller and Andrew Rink.
