The French cloud specialist has acquired ForePaaS, a French start-up specialising in data analytics, machine learning, and artificial intelligence projects. With this acquisition, the unicorn continues to expand and enrich its PaaS (Platform As A Service) offering. Experts at AURIS Finance, an M&A consultancy, decipher this new market move.
The OVHcloud story is a French success story. Founded in 1999, OVHcloud has spent the last 20 years competing with global cloud giants such as Microsoft and AWS, a subsidiary of the giant Amazon. When it started in the 2000s, very few players were positioning themselves in the cloud, which allows data to be stored and accessed via an online host. In the space of two decades, this technology has made inroads into all sectors of the economy, with the vast majority of businesses now using the cloud to manage their data. And it’s a trend that’s set to continue unabated over the next few years. According to research from US-based consultancy Gartner, the cloud budget for businesses worldwide is expected to reach $1,800 billion by 2025, up from $1,300 billion in 2022 – an increase of $500 billion in just three years.
From start-up to unicorn
The French company is reaping the benefits of this boom. It currently employs 2,500 people, while its turnover for 2020 is set at €632 million. In 2016, OVHcloud became one of the first French tech unicorns (a company valued at over a billion dollars). In 2021, the group was floated on the Paris stock exchange at a valuation of nearly €4 billion. With 32 data centres on four continents and 400,000 servers, the company has been expanding its service offering in line with its growth. In addition to data storage, OVHcloud is moving towards a PaaS offering (Platform As A Service). By providing a shared library of services, it aggregates solutions for businesses. The ForePaaS technological building block has been added to the 70 PaaS solutions offered by OVHcloud to some 1.6 million customers worldwide.
Growth through successive acquisitions
By taking control of ForePaaS, OVHcloud is continuing its strategy of inorganic growth. In just a few years, the French cloud leader has successively acquired OpenIO, Exten Technologies, and BuyRDM. All of which have added new services to OVHcloud’s value proposition. With the acquisition of ForePaaS, OVHcloud is accelerating its move into data expertise. “This acquisition of technological building blocks and skills will enable us to support an increasing number of use cases for all our clients who are looking for flexible solutions to ease their adoption of the cloud and give them total control over the lifecycle of their data,” explained Thierry Souche, CTO of OVHcloud, in a press release announcing the acquisition.
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