Access Intelligence acquires three businesses

HMT advised Access Intelligence plc on three acquisitions.

Acquisition of Cobent Limited – Cobent was founded by Howard Sears in 2003 and is based in Chipping Norton, Oxfordshire. Cobent’s primary product, Learning Compliance Suite (“LCS”) was launched in 2005 and allows regulated organisations to manage employee training, maintaining a complete training record and ensuring compliance with regulatory guidelines on record-keeping, security, validation and auditability.  Initially designed to be compliant with US Food and Drug Administration requirements, the product is now also compliant with regulatory guidance for other industries including financial services.

Acquisition of Ether-Ray Ltd –

Ether-Ray was founded by Raul Gonzalez in 1999 and is based in Old Street, London. Ether-Ray’s products are delivered via the Software-as-a-Service (“SaaS”) model with the majority of customers on six year subscription contracts, where subscriptions are paid annually in advance. Ether-Ray has approximately 188 customers, of which around 150 are on the hosted platform. Raul will stay on as a consultant for a limited period to help transition the business into the Access Intelligence group.

Ether-Ray’s MARCOMM product provides on-demand, hosted software for the corporate communications teams within the public sector. All facets of the communications function, including media and public relations, stakeholder management, internal comms, and marketing aims to increase productivity and efficiency by having easy access to the software that streamlines and simplifies the workload. Through MARCOMM users are able to capture, create, distribute and analyse all communications, driving brand recognition in the communities they serve and upholding the reputation of their organisation. In addition, Ether-Ray’s CODEX product is an online contacts database of journalists and media professionals.

Acquisition of Solcara Ltd – Solcara is a market leading search and information management company that has developed core technologies enabling the development of software applications, which address the need to search, identify and analyse ever expanding volumes of information. Solcara currently has four product offerings, covering legal and professional firms, information access, media relations and crisis management. Their range of blue chip clients, both in the public and private sectors, includes companies and organisations such as DEFRA, VISA Europe, Clifford Chance, AstraZeneca, United Utilities and Thomas Cook. The acquisition compliments Access’ focus on ‘software as a service’ and provides a number of cross-selling opportunities with other group companies.

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