Accenture has acquired French cloud services provider Linkbynet for an undisclosed amount.
This is technology M&A deal number 272 that ChannelE2E has covered so far in 2021. See all technology M&A deals for 2021 and 2020 listed here.
Founded in 2000, Linkbynet specializes in cloud optimization and managed services, cloud transformation, and cloud security. The company’s headquarters are in Saint-Denis, France. It has additional offices in Belgium, Canada, China, France, Luxembourg, Mauritius, Singapore and Vietnam. Linkbynet has more than 900 employees with certifications from the likes of Alibaba, Amazon, Google and Microsoft.
The company’s cloud expertise and many certifications will improve Accenture’s Cloud First business, the company said.
Accenture Acquires Linkbynet: Executive Perspective
Karthik Narain, global lead, Accenture Cloud First, commented on the deal:
"Acquiring Linkbynet would be another strategic step in strengthening our Accenture Cloud First capabilities. Linkbynet's talented team would bring deep cloud and engineering specialization, managed services, sophisticated technology tools and cybersecurity intelligence."
Olivier Girard, market unit lead for Accenture France & Benelux, said:
"Entire industries have been challenged to not only reinvent their customer experience, but also their core offerings, while imagining new business models for the future. With advisory and digital transformation experience across cloud implementation, security, management, and optimization, the Linkbynet team brings critical skills that would help Accenture clients adopt emerging technologies and scale them across their enterprise for strategic agility in a challenging business environment."
Patrick and Stéphane Aisenberg, co-founders of Linkbynet added:
"We are proud to be one of the first French cloud-native players and a pioneer in the synergistic models between technological transformation (cloud adoption), security and cloud managed services. The combination of Accenture's and Linkbynet's unique working culture, values, and technical expertise would enable us to better support our customers' digital projects across multiple sectors, while providing their organizations with the same exceptional levels of service and resilience they've come to expect. We are excited about the opportunity to join Accenture in helping companies reimagine their business and rebuild differently for the benefit of all — from their customers and people to society at large."
Accenture’s Acquisition Strategy
Accenture has made a number of strategic investments over the past two years as it seeks to enhance its cloud services capabilities. Accenture Cloud First is backed by a $3 billion investment to be used over three years, the company said.
Recent transactions include the acquisition of France’s Gekko in June 2020 and Cirruseo in June 2019. The company also acquired Edenhouse and Infinity Works, both from the UK, as well as Cygni from Sweden.
Accenture invested nearly $1.5 billion globally on 34 acquisitions in its 2020 fiscal year. You can see a full list of Accenture acquisitions here.
