Vault Systems CEO, Rupert Taylor-Price
Canberra-based cloud services wholesaler, Vault Systems, has sold 23 per cent of its stake to Moelis Australia Government Infrastructure Fund.
The Moelis Fund was established by Australian Securities Exchange-listed Moelis Australia (ASX:MOE), a financial services group, to invest in the expansion of Australian Government secure cloud services through Vault Systems.
Until now, Vault Systems was a private company owned by founder and CEO Rupert Taylor-Price, who got the remaining 77 per cent of the company.
Moelis will financially support Vault while the company invests $350 million in Government infrastructure for a “number of years”. The investment will go specifically into cloud infrastructure for Australian Federal, State and local Government.
“Vault will source debt in preference to equity where possible. Currently, Westpac and CBA provide debt facilities to Vault,” Taylor-Price told ARN.
The company has not specified how much it will invest each year, but it claims the size of the investment is a reflection of the substantial research and development that Vault has undertaken in developing a “true government cloud platform that incorporates Australian security standards to the highest levels, while providing extensive scalability, flexibility and cost effectiveness”.
Vault Systems was established in 2012 and offers a virtual private hosting service. The company is one of three Australian companies with the PROTECTED classification level for cloud providers from the Australian Signals Directory (ASD) Certified Cloud Services.
Specifically, Vault designed, built and deployed an open stack certified government community cloud that was granted the certification.
Canberra-based Sliced Tech and Macquarie Telecom are the other cloud service providers with the highest level of accreditation.
“Vault Systems is a wonderful example of the potential of Australia’s technology community to meet the needs of the country’s digital transformation,” head of Moelis Australia Asset Management, Andrew Martin, said.
“Vault Systems provides government clients an Australian-built best-in-class cloud platform that is fully secured and managed in Australia. We are proud to have the opportunity to support Rupert and his team.”
According to Vault, the investment also creates an opportunity to create close to 300 technology jobs mostly in Canberra. Taylor-Price told ARN the jobs will include engineering and customer service opportunities.
“I am delighted that with this investment we are creating high value Australian jobs in the new digital economy”, Taylor-Price said.
New investments, new board
With the significant growth the company has been experiencing with many of the projects on the Vault platform considered of national significance.
As an investing partner, Moelis saw that a level of governance was required especially given the significance of the workloads.
A new board has been established with three members joining Vault’s CEO.
Former Secretary of the Department of Finance, Jane Halton, has been appointed chair of the board. She resigned from her role in late 2016 after 33 years as a public servant. She has been an independent non-executive director of ANZ.
She said she was pleased to be joining the board. “I have been impressed by Vault’s commitment to safeguarding national security data and the personal data of Australians,” Halton said.
Dennis Richardson and Paul Moy have both been appointed as non-executive directors.
Richardson was most recently the Secretary of the Department of Defence and have previously held the position of Secretary of the Department of Foreign Affairs and Trade, as well as, Director General of the Australian Security Intelligence Organisation.
“Many of the technological developments taking place at Vault have a wider application in critical operational areas of Defence. I look forward to bringing my expertise and knowledge to assist Vault in its expansion”, Richardson said.
Moy was UBS Asset Management global head of infrastructure and private equity. He has extensive experience in finance and investment and has previously been Deputy Secretary of NSW Treasury.
“This is a significant opportunity to be involved in the major expansion of a growing Australian company which is leading the world globally in the application of secure cloud technologies”, Moy said.
As part of the growth, Vault Systems has also appointed Tony Marceddo as the company’s first general manager. Marceddo will report directly to Vault’s CEO.
He joins from Northrop Grumman Australia where he was general manager for M5 network services.
