Databarracks Acquires UK Company 4sl

Databarracks Ltd has acquired 4sl Consulting Ltd, founded in 2007, for an undisclosed sum to create a combined company with 75 staff, including 50 data protection experts.

Peter Groucutt, MD, Databarracks comments: “4sl is a company we have always admired for its expertise and skill in enterprise data protection. It is a globally recognised leader in delivering managed Commvault services, providing a gold standard of support to its customers. Getting to know Barnaby and the team, we have been impressed by how similar the cultures of our businesses are, and how much we have in common.”

Barnaby Mote, CEO and founder, 4SL, explains: “This an exciting day for 4sl and Databarracks. We’re bringing together the two top data protection teams in the UK. This acquisition will bring benefits for customers of both Databarracks and 4sl. Databarracks is now the UK’s largest Commvault MSP.”

Groucutt added: “Over the past twelve months we have been transforming our core services. We have migrated our customers’ backups and DR workloads from our data centres into Microsoft Azure, AWS and Google Cloud. We are now the largest public cloud backup and DR specialist in the UK.

“With 4sl, we are adding enterprise capability and the ability to transform legacy tape environments. Together we are offering modern data protection to organisations in the UK and around the world. We have expertise across the leading backup, replication, storage and cloud technologies We are in a strong position and the business is poised for growth.

“In 2020, BC and IT resilience were thrust into the spotlight. IT has proven to be the business-enabler through this incredibly difficult period. I think everyone now has a much greater respect for the importance of technology and our reliance upon it.

“Protecting data and keeping systems online are fundamental for all organisations. The growing cyber threat is driving organisations to revisit their resilience strategies to ensure they are protected and can recover from any incident. Backup and IT DR has never been more important.”

Bird & Bird, the London firm specialised in tech, acted on behalf of Databarracks, advised by the corporate partner Neil Blundell, senior associate George Mason and associate Amy Farrer. Advising across corporate M&A, tax, employment, banking and finance and commercial.

KPMG advised Databarracks on the acquisition.

Graham Pearce, partner, commented: “Never before has data resilience been so in focus as it is now. Databarracks and 4SL are two specialist market leaders and their combination will bring huge benefits to their customers and the market.”

RSM provided financial due diligence (Rob McCarthy and Stephen Grogan).

BOOST&Co assisted with the funding for Databarracks for the acquisition of 4sl and was supported by Ryan Sorby, head of north and Scotland.