Waterland buys Within Reach Group

Francesca Veronesi
23 July 2018

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Waterland Private Equity has bought Within Reach Group (WRG), a Dutch IT and telecoms holding company, to merge it with portfolio company Swyx, a German IP-based communication software provider.

The new group then acquired the French software developer Centile, a provider of Cloud private branche exchange (PBX), unified communications and fixed mobile convergence solutions.

Centile was backed by US-based GP MVC Capital until early July, when the GP announced it had sold the company to Voip Holdings for $7.5m.

The combined group's head offices will be in Almere and Dortmund, and it will be led by Stijn Nijhuis (current CEO Voiceworks, a subsidiary of WRG) and Ralf Ebbinghaus (CEO of Swyx) as co-CEOs.

Currently the group operates in Germany, the Netherlands and France with activities in 25 countries, and employs 500 people.

WRG operates a unified-communications-as-a-service (UCaaS) platform, and estimates its total annual turnover will amount to €75m in 2018. The labels of the group serve several business markets via direct and indirect sales channels, from small and medium-sized enterprises to organisations in healthcare, government and education. The group now operates the Swyx, Centile, Voiceworks, Intercity, i4IP, Xenosite and Summa brands. WRG operates 12 offices and employs around 500 people.

Previous funding
Waterland acquired corporate communications company Swyx in January 2018. The acquisition was deemed the first step in the GP's new buy-and-build strategy in the IT sector.

According to Unquote sister publication Debtwire, Pemberton provided a debt package to support the transaction.

Company
Voiceworks, one of the main brands of WRG prior to the latest mergers, is a mobile telephony, fixed telephony, unified communications and data service. Founded in 2005 and based in Almere.

Founded in 1999 and headquartered in Dortmund, Swyx develops corporate communication software for mid-sized companies. It integrates and connects voice, instant messaging and video communication channels and is hosted by a cloud service.

Centile, a provider of cloud PBX and unified communications, and fixed mobile convergence services, is headquartered in Valbonne Sophia-Antipoli and has a team of 45 employees. The business was founded in 1998.

People
Voiceworks – Stijn Nijhuis (CEO, co-founder).
Swyx – Ralf Ebbinghaus (CEO).