Lyceum first invested in Adapt in September 2011 acquiring a majority stake in a ?30 million transaction. Lyceum had a clear vision and transformational strategy for the business and backed new Chief Executive Stewart Smythe to deliver it. Under Lyceum’s ownership and Stewart’s leadership Adapt has successfully transformed from a reseller of data centre colocation and connectivity into a high growth managed hosting provider and cloud integrator for business critical applications. Headquartered in London with operations in Cardiff, Ipswich and Leeds, Adapt serves a wide range of organisations including Greencore Group, The Cabinet Office, Interflora and Steinhoff.
Since its acquisition by Lyceum, Adapt has achieved double digit growth and 25% EBITDA margin. Lyceum sourced two small but strategically important add-on acquisitions off market, completing eLINIA in April 2012 and Sleek in June 2013, which extended the existing technical capability to deliver Adapt’s business transformation. In 2015 Adapt organically entered the critical hyperscaler market through a partnership with Amazon Web Services (AWS), securing Advanced Partner Status in the shortest period of any AWS partner, globally.
Abry Partners the lead investor in Datapipe has tracked Adapt’s transformation since 2012 and made a formal approach for the business in 2016. As part of the sale, Stewart Smythe will remain with the business and lead Datapipe’s European Operations.
Adapt represents another successful realisation for Lyceum.
Simon Hitchcock, Partner at Lyceum, commented:
“Our investment in Adapt five years ago allowed us to take full advantage of the high growth opportunities in the managed hosting market. We identified these opportunities in the sector early on, through our extensive market mapping activities. Since the acquisition, we have invested heavily into developing the business’s capability and growing it significantly by putting Lyceum’s buy and build model into action. Our deep understanding of the IT managed services market coupled with the management team’s expertise, have helped Adapt to become a market leader in its niche. The success of Adapt is just one example of how the UK has become a breeding ground for high growth businesses in the lower middle market, and confirms Lyceum’s track record as a value adding technology investor.”
Stewart Smythe, Chief Executive of Adapt:
“Together with Lyceum we have achieved a phenomenal amount over a short space of time to truly transform Adapt into the market leader it is today. We have integrated three businesses to create a new high performing and customer-focussed operation, building a talented management team, creating a new go-to-market and developing a professional sales organisation. Today Adapt’s unique Habitat offering provides market-leading hybrid and multi cloud services delivered from one integrated platform to support our customers’ mission-critical business applications. Coming together with Datapipe will accelerate our strategy to develop into a truly global business.”
“Adapt and Datapipe both have cultures that focus on proactive, high touch customer service and a commitment to customer specific solutions designed to meet clients’ individual business challenges,” said Robb Allen, CEO, Datapipe. “Our similar approach to guiding clients on their cloud journey makes the acquisition a natural fit for us and will increase our scale and service capabilities in the United Kingdom, and the broader European market.”
