BDO Development Capital Fund invests €10 million in Blueface to launch international expansion
BDO Development Capital Fund invests €10 million in Blueface to launch international expansion
In its seventh and largest investment to date, the BDO Development Capital Fund is funding a €10 million investment in Blueface, the leading Unified Communications-as-a-Service Provider to businesses, enterprises and carriers. The investment will be used to accelerate significant international expansion plans by Blueface.
Blueface currently has over 50 high-skilled employees operating from its headquarters in Dublin. It plans to increase this number by 80 to over 130 by 2022 across its markets in Ireland, Europe and the US.
As part of the investment Anthony O’Driscoll, Investment Director of The BDO Development Capital Fund has joined the Blueface Board.
Announcing the investment, Andrew Bourg, Head of Investments of the BDO Development Capital Fund said: “The BDO Development Capital Fund is delighted to announce details of this significant investment in a highly ambitious Company and management team. We are backing Blueface’s goal of becoming a significant international player in its chosen market segments with the objective that this sizable investment in conjunction with the support of our Funding Partners will drive, exploit and maximise Blueface’s international growth opportunities.”
Blueface Group CEO, Alan Foy, commented: “In the BDO Development Capital Fund, we have found the right investment partner that understands our ambition to take our best-in-class technology global. This investment will help us with our plans to accelerate our growth into several new markets. Today’s announcement marks a significant milestone in our journey and will enable us to continue to hire the best and brightest here in Ireland and in our new international offices.”
Enterprise Ireland CEO, Julie Sinnamon, commented: “Enterprise Ireland has worked closely with Blueface over the last 10 years to support their growth journey and build a strong international customer base. This innovative and ambitious company has grown from strength-to-strength with further plans for recruitment and R&D development here in Ireland. Enterprise Ireland will continue to work closely with Blueface as they expand their global market reach, and we wish them continued success for the future.”
Founded in 2004 and headquartered in Dublin, Blueface’s proprietary cloud voice platform services business customers of all sizes ranging from SME’s through to large multinational enterprises.
The Enterprise-Ready cloud voice solutions provided by Blueface are recognised as cutting edge and global best-in-class, providing customers with reliable, feature rich, flexible and scalable UC solutions across hosted voice, landline and mobile services, messaging, conferencing, global services, workforce mobility and a suite of cloud based business applications.
The BDO Development Capital Fund provides development and growth capital for established, mid-sized and profitable Irish companies to assist them to achieve and accelerate their export-led growth plans. As well as facilitating its ambitious international expansion plans, the BDO Development Capital Fund will enable Blueface to take full advantage of the increasing shift to cloud communications.
The project is supported by the Department of Jobs, Enterprise and Innovation through Enterprise Ireland’s investment in the BDO Development Capital Fund.
Blueface’s international expansion strategy is driven by the significant and projected uptake of UCaaS (Unified Communications as a Service) solutions by SME and Enterprise customers moving from on-premise solutions to cloud-based delivery models for reasons including:
- need for scalability;
- high performance of workplace tools across territories;
- cost advantages of cloud-based utilisation of services;
- obsolescence of current capital equipment, and;
- global wind-down of PSTN analogue telephone networks.
Since 2004, Blueface have developed a proprietary Unified Communications platform that has grown to incorporate evolving Unified Communications features across hosted voice, landline and mobile services, messaging, conferencing, global services, workforce mobility and a suite of cloud based business applications.
Pictured at the announcement of a €10 million investment by BDO Development Capital in Blueface, the business telephony services company, are: Anthony O’Driscoll (Investment Director, BDO Development Capital), Alan Foy (Group CEO, Blueface) and Andrew Bourg (Head of Investments, BDO Development Capital).