Rapid Circle, the Dutch Microsoft cloud specialist, has received an investment from private equity firm Mentha. The purpose of the investment is to accelerate the (international) growth of Rapid Circle, both organically and through acquisitions.  In addition to expansion in the existing markets of the Netherlands, India and Australia, Rapid Circle will focus on entering new markets including Germany, Belgium and countries in Southern Europe and Asia.

Rapid Circle was founded in 2008 by Harold Punter, Wilco Turnhout and Daniel McPherson and helps companies make the transition to and manage Microsoft cloud applications and infrastructures. The organization now has about 200 employees and offices in Amsterdam, Pune and Melbourne. Microsoft ranks the Dutch company among the most important partners worldwide. In the last five years, Rapid Circle achieved annual growth of 30 percent and received an FD Gazelle award three times. With the capital injection from Mentha, it aims to accelerate this growth and become a global player.

“We started our business before the cloud became a trend and have a strong vision of how cloud technology can help businesses move forward,” said Harold Punter, CEO of Rapid Circle. “This vision has proven to be successful; more than 200 organizations now use our services to work smarter and more efficiently. We are now ready for the next step to capitalize on the opportunities we see internationally, including the increasing demand for Microsoft’s cloud solutions.”

Growth through acquisitions and broadening of services

Mentha’s investment enables Rapid Circle to scale and deploy a solid growth strategy. Strategic acquisitions of companies with a similar focus and organizations that can broaden the service portfolio are planned for this. The latter also benefits Rapid Circle’s existing customers. For employees, the investment and expansion also means that new career opportunities arise.

The accelerated growth that Rapid Circle envisions is in line with the current market situation in which most large organizations have moved to Microsoft’s cloud offering for part of their IT environment. They are expanding these investments by also bringing their data center and workplace management to Microsoft. In addition to traditional IT companies, organizations are increasingly looking to innovative parties such as Rapid Circle to support them in this.

Haran Sold, Partner at Mentha: “The importance and relevance of Microsoft cloud solutions as a business-critical infrastructure and application environment is more evident than ever. Rapid Circle knows how to help organizations, address the challenges of accelerated digitization and  collaborate remotely. By supporting them with capital and knowledge, we want to respond to the global trend where companies want to accelerate the value of new solutions and buy managed services for digital transformation. I look forward to supporting Rapid Circle as a strong and ambitious Microsoft partner in realizing their growth ambitions.”