LONDON (Reuters) - Blackstone (NYSE:BX), which has $100 billion in private equity assets under management, has acquired a majority stake in cloud computing business Cloudreach for an undisclosed sum, the investment firm said on Thursday.
Cloud computing uses a network of remote servers hosted on the Internet to store, manage and process data, instead of a local server or a personal computer.
London-based Cloudreach was founded in 2009 and has operations in seven countries, with clients including travel booking sites Sky Scanner and Trainline and publisher Time Inc. Research group Fast Track said in its 2015 report that Cloudreach was among the 20 fastest-growing British technology companies.
Pontus Noren, a co-founder of Cloudreach, will be CEO of the business and Dave Johnson, a senior adviser to Blackstone, will become chairman.
The cloud services market is expected to grow into a $236 billion industry by 2020, research firm Forrester estimates.
"We are entering into this industry at a key inflection point and will seek to make additional investments to accelerate and expand Cloudreach’s capabilities,” Johnson said.
Arma Partners advised Cloudreach on the transaction.