UK Cloud Services Firm Six Degrees Group Secures $94 Million in Funding

Six Degrees Group, the London-based start-up managed data services provider, announced that it received $94 million in funding from Penta Capital, a private equity firm.

The start-up currently has around 100 people. With more than 1,200 business customers, the company will be hiring more executives and expects the headcount to grow by 20 percent a year.

Six Degrees Group, which targets the mid-market in the UK, is expecting more business for its cloud-based voice business continuity and disaster recovery solution called Livenumber from legal and financial services companies.

The company invested significantly in expanding its core network and data center assets to improve its reach and capabilities. It is also developing in-house expertise in managing Web-based services, user profiles and secure workflows to support capabilities like BYOD (Bring Your Own Device), company officials said.

Six Degrees Group’s newest data center is purpose-built to support cloud services. The data center is likely to displace public clouds like Amazon Web Services and Apple's (News - Alert) new iCloud with a private cloud appropriate to the enterprise.

“That's why we've seen nearly 800 percent growth in 12 months in our cloud solutions, and why we've made a big investment in more data center space to help us grow,” said Alastair Mills, CEO of Six Degrees, in a statement.

“We've got nearly 100 people, we're growing at over 20 percent year-on-year, and we're solving real business challenges. We're growing as a company and we're doing it in technology areas that will spur growth for UK plc., its innovation and ideas that will drag Britain out of its slump and that's what we promise to deliver,” Mills added.

In other news, Eurocom Worldwide, a global alliance of independent public relations agencies, was recently selected by industry analyst and market consulting firm Cambashi to create and launch a targeted campaign to generate visibility for Cambashi's expertise and insights on the use of IT to address critical business issues. Eurocom Worldwide members Ripple Effect Communications of Boston and Six Degrees, based in the UK, are partnering on the program.