Depending on who you believe, hype around the Cloud is either reaching the “Peak of Inflated Expectations” (where early success stories capture lots of media and industry attention), or is already slipping quickly towards the “Trough of Disillusionment” (where early deployments fail to live up to expectations and the industry begins to re-evaluate their approach).

Organic growth and strategic acquisitions see Claranet Group’s turnover hit £216.5 million for the year ended 30 June 2017, and annualised revenue of £310 million

Claranet has released financial results for the year ended June 2017; a year which saw annual revenues increase by 42 per cent. The company’s revenues for the 2017 fiscal year were £216.5 million, up from £152.5 the previous year, while Adjusted EBITDA grew by 32 per cent to £38.7 million.

The Group’s international expansion was led by a series of strategic acquisitions, including that of Brazilian public cloud services provider CredibiliT in December 2016, which represented Claranet’s entrance into the South American market. This was complemented by the opening of Claranet Italy in February 2017, capitalising on a growing demand for managed public cloud services in the Italian market.

Claranet also successfully consolidated its presence in its established regions, through the acquisition of high-availability application management expert Ardenta and security solutions provider Sec-1 in the UK, French DevOps and cloud specialist Oxalide, Portuguese IT business ITEN Solutions and IT provider Rely in the Netherlands.

Commenting on this year’s growth, Charles Nasser, Founder and CEO of Claranet, said:

The most exciting aspect of our growth in scale and capability is providing services that are increasingly relevant to our customers’ journey, allowing us to develop ever stronger relationships. As we continue to expand our portfolio of services, we are also attracting larger customers with a broader range of services.”

This strategy has enabled us to make significant inroads with upcoming technologies and related services in the areas of Public Cloud, DevOps, Security and Big data.”

The past year has been one of the most significant in Claranet’s 21-year history, marked by a wide range of strategic acquisitions, our expansion into two completely new markets, and the strengthening of our service portfolio. The steps we have taken to grow the business provide the ideal platform from which we can consolidate our position in the market and pursue further growth as the IT services industry continues to evolve and consolidate.”

Our work over the past year has centred on building an organisation that caters to the increasingly complex application needs of modern businesses while remaining agile. We’re growing quickly both in terms of our size and capabilities, but as a business we’re doing what we’ve always done; staying close to our customers, making sure we’re delivering the best possible service and taking advantage of new technologies to help our customers do amazing things.”

Nigel Fairhurst, Chief Financial Officer at Claranet, commented:

Our results for the year highlight the positive impact our acquisition strategy and refinancing exercise have had on our position in the market. At the end of FY17, annualised revenue for the Group was in excess of £310 million, roughly double the revenue reported in FY16.”

Claranet’s growth this year has also been boosted by its refinancing exercise, which has provided the company with long-term funding and an incremental acquisition facility of £80 million. In addition, Tikehau Capital have acquired a minority shareholding in Claranet.

Fairhurst added:

The investments we’ve made over the past few years in our staff, technical expertise and partnerships mean that we’re now capable of competing with some of the biggest players in the industry, and we fully expect to maintain this momentum into the next financial year.”