Redgate Investments has made a substantial investment in Croatia-based monitoring and administration software company, SysKit.
Redgate Investments, a sister company to Redgate Software, the leading Microsoft SQL Server tools vendor, was created to make sizeable minority investments in founder-led businesses, without the onerous terms and conditions often required by private equity and venture capitalists.
Looking beyond the typical software investment locations like Silicon Valley in the US or Cambridge in the UK, it has chosen to invest in SysKit, which was founded in Zagreb just eight years ago. SysKit creates solutions for the SharePoint, Office 365 and Citrix environments and, with a team of more than 40 people, has over 3,000 public sector and corporate customers across the globe.
The investment, which has been made with the option for a further investment round in two years, will enable SysKit to advance its plans and concentrate its efforts on developing tools for the SharePoint market. It will also be able to call on the sales and marketing expertise of Redgate Software so that it can reach more customers in a more effective way.
“I’m really excited about SysKit’s ability to grow from where it is now,” says Simon Galbraith, CEO of Redgate Software and Redgate Investments. “There is a big, global market they haven’t yet fully reached, and I look forward to seeing them become the most successful Croatian software product company. I’m delighted by the quality of talent available in Croatia and I’m looking forward to working with SysKit, and seeing the company go to the next level.”
For Toni Frankola, CEO and Co-Founder of SysKit, the investment is a major boost in the future of the company. “This was a great move for us because it’s given us much more than a normal VC deal would have done. Alongside the financial investment, having Redgate alongside us brings their knowledge and skills to the table. They’ve already been on the same journey and they can share best practice and help us to become strategically stronger.”
In a connected development, Redgate Software has also acquired SQL Manager, a data discovery and classification tool, from SysKit to enhance its own line-up of SQL Server tools. Redgate has been extending its SQL Server toolset to cover every part of database DevOps, and sees data privacy and protection as the next big challenge for SQL Server users.
SQL Manager is already making headway in the market and its data classification functionality will be developed further before the newly renamed SQL Estate Manager is released in early 2018 as part of a complete data privacy and protection solution.
