Beech Tree Private Equity backed Wavenet announces the acquisition of VIA, a leading unified communications player specialising in Microsoft Teams & Skype, as part of its ongoing buy and build strategy.

Beech Tree Private Equity, the specialist buy and build investor in high-growth sectors, today announces that its investee company Wavenet has acquired VIA (Smart Hosted Solutions Limited), a business based in Nottingham, in a multi-million pound deal. Terms of the deal are not disclosed. This follows the acquisitions of Solar, APR, Swains and Talk Internet with more in the pipeline.

Wavenet, an award-winning UK supplier of business telecommunication and technology solutions, backed by Beech Tree Private Equity, is boosting its Microsoft Teams platform, TeamsLink, by adding the experience of VIA into its solution and service portfolio. This acquisition will significantly strengthen Wavenet Group's expertise in Office 365 and Microsoft Teams. This expertise, in combination with Wavenet's recently launched TeamsLink service, puts Wavenet in an enviable position to provide businesses with a market-leading Teams calling solution.

The combination of the businesses brings the benefits of scale, broader geographic reach, a stronger management team and significant enhancements to the UC and Teams services the group can now offer its customers. The acquisition also gives VIA's customers access to Wavenet's long-standing telecoms partnerships and its teams of trained engineers across the group portfolio.

Wavenet has its own automated platform on which it offers multiple connectivity and cloud-based communication services to direct customers and resellers, which will be integrating VIA's platform to offer even more options to its customers.

After launching in 2012, VIA quickly grew to become the UK's largest Skype for Business provider and has naturally transitioned to Microsoft Teams as it has exploded in popularity over the last 12 months. VIA brings years of Office 365 experience to the group, who together, will now be able to offer their 8,000 business and enterprise customers the ultimate unified communications and collaboration platform.

This acquisition will significantly strengthen the Wavenet Group's market share in the Unified Communications marketplace and cement its place as one of the leading managed service providers to businesses in the UK for fully converged data, voice, cloud, security and mobile. The combination of the businesses brings the benefits of scale, broader geographic reach, a stronger management team and significant enhancements to the portfolio of services and solutions the group can now offer its customers. Wavenet has its own automated platform on which it offers multiple cloud-based communication services to direct customers and resellers. It has a leading position in Cisco's BroadCloud solutions, underpinned by a broad range of connectivity, security, cloud voice and data solutions which it supplies on its own network.

Funders to the Transaction:Beech Tree Private Equity: Paul Franks and Adam RuddAres Management: Anish SatijaAdvisers to Wavenet and Beech Tree Private Equity:Debt Advisers: Clearwater International (Joe Dyke)Transaction Legals: Higgs & Sons (Richard Griffiths)Banking Legals: Eversheds (Patrick Davis)Financial Diligence: DSW (Ed Brentnall)