UK News

Cellhire Growth Plans Accelerate with Investment from LDC

Global IoT and mobile data specialist Cellhire has secured a significant investment for a minority stake from leading mid-market private equity firm LDC.

The partnership with LDC will accelerate substantial growth plans at Cellhire and help the management team to expand its product and service offering and further develop its Internet of Things (IoT) proposition.

Headquartered in York, Cellhire offers high-speed and secure ways for businesses and partners to stay connected worldwide. It has built key partnerships with UK mobile network operators (MNOs) Vodafone, O2 and EE through long established ISP agreements. Internationally it has developed partnerships with more than 40 MNOs and rolled out its first Full MVNO on the Orange network in France. Recently it has worked with China Unicom at the Beijing Winter Olympics and has established a commercial agreement with Qatari MNO Ooredoo for the FIFA World Cup. Cellhire serves customers across multiple distribution channels including B2B, B2C, White Label, Partner and M2M/IoT wholesale airtimes from offices in the UK, Germany, France, Japan and the USA.

In recent years the business has invested in the development of Atlas™, its proprietary Billing and SIM Management Platform as well as expanding its M2M, IoT and eSIM capabilities. This has underpinned strong growth with turnover increasing by 42% between 2019 and 2022, from £19.1m to £27.1m. 

Tim Williams, Chairman, Cellhire

LDC is backing the existing management team, led by Chairman Tim Williams and Group CEO Martyn Stevens. The investment was led by Dan Smith, Partner and Head of Yorkshire at LDC, alongside Investment Director Will Scales and Investment Manager Ana-Maria Garaba.

Tim Williams, Chairman at Cellhire, said: “Our team has worked incredibly hard over the last couple of years to strengthen our range of products and services. With LDC’s support we’re now at an exciting stage of our journey to broaden our proposition through technology and service.”

Dan Smith, Partner and Head of Yorkshire at LDC, added: “We are excited to be backing Tim, Martyn and their team. They are at the forefront of innovation in the sector and we see there is huge scope to grow the business particularly as the business develops its IoT offering and the market opens up to a growing number of use cases. We’re looking forward to supporting them as they continue to expand their proposition across the world.”

Tim Williams was named one of the UK’s Top 50 Most Ambitious Business Leaders in 2020.

Cellhire was advised by KPMG, CiL and Addleshaw Goddard.

LDC was advised by Alantra, Squire Patton Boggs, Strategy& and Grant Thornton.

About Cellhire

Cellhire (www.cellhire.info) is a leading global telecoms provider of mobile communications, M2M/IoT services and data connectivity to enterprise clients and indirect partners worldwide.

Established in 1987, the group serves EMEA, Americas and APAC with offices in the UK, USA, France, Germany and Japan. Partnering with mobile network operators globally, Cellhire provides access to mobile connectivity at market-leading commercials to companies worldwide.

The company is committed to delivering the highest standards of customer service which is underlined by its continued attainment of ISO 9001:2015, the internationally recognised quality standard. Cellhire is Investors in People (IIP) certified and won the highly coveted Queen’s Award for International Enterprise, as a result of its success as a specialist in the delivery of mobile communication solutions for events around the world.

Since 2019, Cellhire has attained ISO 27001, the internationally recognised Information Security Management System Standard (ISMS), due to the implementation of information security management systems and best practices regarding information security.

About LDC (www.ldc.co.uk/pressrelease)

  1. LDC is the private equity arm of Lloyds Banking Group and is authorised and regulated by the Financial Conduct Authority.
  2. LDC has committed to invest in at least 100 mid-market businesses over the next five years.
  3. LDC has a portfolio of 90 businesses across the UK, across a broad range of sectors including Construction & Property, Financial Services, Healthcare, Industrials, Retail & Consumer, TMT, Travel & Leisure and Support Services.
  4. LDC has a nationwide network of regional offices to provide a local presence to the businesses and communities it supports.
IoT, Partners

Is Cellular IoT Connectivity Really a Better Data Solution for your Customers?

Cellular IoT connectivity is the technology that connects physical objects to the internet using cellular mobile networks like Vodafone, O2 or EE, just as a regular SIM card does. An IoT SIM however is not a mobile broadband SIM, a regular mobile broadband SIM card only provides connectivity and does not include the additional functionality offered by IoT connectivity providers. IoT SIM cards can help improve and make it easier to scale your business by attracting more customers, reducing costs, and beating the competition. This blog will highlight some of the core benefits an IoT SIM card can offer and why this is a better data solution for your customers.

What Does an IoT SIM Card Offer?

Flexibility of Contracts, Costs and Coverage:

Regular Mobile Broadband SIMs have often proven difficult to manage at scale and deploy over many regions at a reasonable cost, IoT SIMs however provide much more flexibility and open possibilities such as:

  • Flexible Commercial Structures – Contract terms that accommodate your specific business needs and let you stay in control over your usage volume and billing date for example.
  • Local Multi-Network Access – A single IoT SIM can prioritise the strongest signal available by automatically switching between networks seamlessly on a global scale. No more switching SIMs for international roaming.
  • Flexibility Over Managing Your SIM Estate – Pause, resume and cancel a SIM or edit its associated terms remotely.

A New Level of Management & Control

Many IoT devices don’t provide screens that offer user interface settings, data usage or their network status and so most operators offer a type of SIM Management Portal instead. This can offer your business and customers real-time insights into the data volume used, connected networks, costs associated with devices and the ability to control and manage these options anywhere and at any time.

Access & Security:

Regular Mobile Broadband SIM cards assign dynamic IP addresses to a device, and this changes each time it may establish a connection making it very difficult to gain remote access to the SIM. IoT SIMs on the other hand can use private static IP addresses in combination with a VPN, public static IP addresses, and private APNs meaning a device can be accessed remotely wherever the location, once deployed. Log into your device to manage, change and execute commands while it’s out in the field. The majority of IoT SIMs are ruggedised, preventing the risk of failure in critical IoT solutions and with every device being kept separate, the data being transmitted is protected, with private APNs controlling network access and secure VPNs in place, your IoT devices will be safe against unauthorised access.

How Does This Benefit a Business?

IoT solutions can help businesses become more successful by:

Advancing Equipment Maintenance

  • IoT sensors in the manufacturing industry can help determine which equipment requires maintenance and what type of care it needs.
  • Machinery with built-in sensors can notify staff about breakdowns and delivery schedules, working to reduce risks and predict future issues.
  • The IoT SIMs implemented in such equipment could help save thousands of pounds in maintenance costs.

Making Employees More Productive

  • IoT smart sensors implemented in offices and manufacturing areas can collect employee data regarding performance, employee engagement and other activities.
  • This data can used by managers to effectively manage staff and distribute their time and effort more successfully to aid the working environment and efficiently use the working hours available.

Enhancing Security

  • IoT SIMs integrated into equipment means machinery can respond much quicker to any security risk as its reaction time is much faster than that of a human operator.
  • In addition to this, security systems learn from previous risks and become even more efficient in predicting and spotting a threat to the system.

Expanding Your Global Capability

  • With a new level of seamless coverage, use a single SIM for global IoT connectivity and gain access to new connectivity partnerships on a global scale.
  • Create or expand projects internationally to open new opportunities and maximise revenue, all while keeping your costs down through a single IoT solution.

Improving The Customer Experience

  • Implementing IoT data analytics can allow you to analyse data usage to gain a better understanding of customers’ behaviour, helping you to predict their future needs or actions.
  • This can aid marketing in terms of effective targeted advertising or promotional campaigns using the data gathered.

What Can Cellhire IoT Connectivity Solutions Provide You?

  • IoT proposition that meets the demands of critical IoT solutions
  • Global Network Capability – Single Network, Multi-Network, International & Roaming.
  • SIM Management Portal – Network agnostic, reporting, automation & control white label capabilities.
  • Security – Secure and resilient networks with resilient DVPN providing private & public static IP
  • Flexible Commercials – Flexible commercial structure designed for IoT use cases including Pooled, Individual, Bundles & Cellhire Flex to deliver increased margin opportunities
  • IoT Grade SIM – Ruggedised IoT SIM, preventing the risk of failure in critical IoT solutions
  • Dedicated Support – Sales & Technical Support Teams

IoT Connectivity solutions can help your business become more efficient and scalable by attracting more customers, reducing your costs and winning further competition in the industry. The additional functionality and flexibility provided by an IoT SIM card can future-proof your business enabling it to flourish, while businesses that neglect to implement innovative connectivity face a risk of losing customers and profits. Don’t wait around, enquire about becoming an Cellhire IoT Connectivity Solutions Partner today.

Email: resellers@cellhire.com
Call: +44 (0)1904 610610
Visit: https://www.cellhire.co.uk/partners