Credit: Dreamstime
Publicly listed cyber security specialist Tesserent has acquired Sydney-based secure cloud services firm, iQ3 for $17.2 million.
The acquisition price includes $8.6 million in cash and 34.6 million shares at $0.2496 per share ($8.6 million).
Tesserent told shareholders that by “bringing iQ3 into the group, there are considerable Cyber 360 cross-sell and up-sell opportunities at a customer, geographic and solution level.
“Tesserent envisages significant sales opportunities for iQ3 secure cloud services to existing TNT group customers in Australia and Singapore.”
Bringing iQ3 into the mix sees Tesserent achieve its goal of $100 million turnover on an annualised basis before the end of the calendar year. During FY20, iQ3 achieved unaudited revenue of more than $25 million and $3 million earnings before tax.
More than 70 per cent of iQ3’s revenue stems from multiple recurring annuity-based contracts.
Besides Sydney, iQ3 also has operations in Brisbane, Melbourne and Singapore, and has strong ties within NSW state and local government agencies including 25 NSW government departments via GovDC and buy.nsw procurement programs.
TNT chair Geoff Lord added: “Craig Humphreys, iQ3’s managing director, has proven to be a talented operator. It’s particularly pleasing to have achieved our $100 million turnover run rate well before December, which now gives us a solid base for material future growth.”
Tesserent also pointed out benefits with iQ3’s ISO-certified network operations centre (NOC) and its own existing ISO-certified security operations centre (SOC) in being able to deliver associated cloud, connectivity and new managed security service capabilities.
“Joining Tesserent is a natural strategic evolution for iQ3. The delivery of cloud services is becoming more security-centric, and we now have the ability to significantly grow the business by providing our clients with that end-to-end secure cloud and cyber security solution they’re looking for,” Humphreys said.
Tesserent has made a handful of acquisitions this year snapping up Ludus and Airloom in August, and Seer in July.
Earlier this year, Tesserent secured $10 million in funding in order to further its ambitious acquisition strategy in 2020 with deals that will support its Cyber-360 Strategy.
