Cloudwise, a leading IT service provider in the education sector, is joining the Odin Group. Hogenhouck M&A advised Cloudwise and its shareholders during this acquisition process, enabling Cloudwise to further strengthen its position in the education sector under the Odin Group’s umbrella.
Greater Impact on Education
For over 11 years, Cloudwise has distinguished itself by offering smart solutions to complex technical and pedagogical challenges in education. The company has developed COOL, a digital learning and working environment that has been highly successful in elementary schools.
Jeroen Kuerble, CEO of Cloudwise: “Our passion for education and emerging Google technology—including the huge demand for Chromebooks—enabled us to offer the education sector something truly new: a solution that’s fully cloud-based and designed specifically for education. That innovation has taken us a long way. We’ve managed to attract more than 2,000 schools and hundreds of thousands of daily users.”
Growth and a shared passion for education are the driving forces behind the acquisition
Jeroen Kuerble continues: “Growing larger also brings its own set of challenges. Our clients are growing larger and more demanding, while innovation is becoming increasingly expensive and complex. To address these developments, we need scale, growth, and specialized knowledge. And that is exactly what both Odin Group and Cloudwise bring to the table. By combining our passion for education, we can use ICT to make a greater impact on education.”
Odin Group Strengthens Its Growth Ambitions
Odin Group is a leading Managed Service Provider in the Netherlands, specializing in managed services, cloud hosting, data center solutions, security, and consulting. With over 650 employees and offices in the Netherlands and Germany, Odin Group offers reliable and innovative IT solutions.
According to Arno Witvliet, CEO of Odin Group, this move is fully in line with Odin Group’s growth strategy. Odin Group enables IT companies to excel in their own market segments. To remain relevant, growth, scale, and market diversification are essential. Witvliet: “Our strategy focuses not only on organic growth but also very explicitly on adding more companies to the group—preferably companies that align well with markets we are familiar with and our existing portfolios. To create maximum synergy, we look for organizations that operate nationally or internationally, share the same growth ambitions, and—very importantly—have a comparable corporate culture. Cloudwise more than meets these criteria and will undoubtedly help Odin Group further develop our activities in the education sector. With this acquisition, we therefore expect to continue innovating and investing in compelling solutions for education.”
Synergy Benefits
Cloudwise will continue its operations under its own name and, together with the Odin Group, explore how educational activities within the Odin Group can be better aligned and consolidated. This strategic partnership offers both parties the opportunity to realize synergies.
Rogier Borggreve, Director of Odin Education, sees significant potential in the synergy between the two companies: “With Heutink ICT, we already have a company with over 25 years of experience providing IT services in education. By continuing to build on this foundation together, we can greatly increase our combined innovative capabilities. This will not only benefit elementary education—where both Heutink ICT and Cloudwise have their roots—but we also see numerous opportunities in secondary education to jointly develop a suitable portfolio.”
Innovation in the Educational Landscape
The Hogenhouck M&A team that advised Cloudwise on this transaction consisted of Hein Stoops, Maarten van der Heijden, and Stefan Nguyen.
The shareholders of Cloudwise jointly founded the company 13 years ago. “After an amazing 13-year journey, we’ve realized a ‘boyhood dream’ and built something we’re very proud of. Together, we created a unique dynamic and shared boundless trust, which enabled us to seize the opportunities that came our way. We’re thrilled to have found this safe haven for our wonderful company. The decision to choose Hogenhouck was based on thorough comparative research. Hogenhouck M&A has in-depth knowledge of our MSP market. In addition, a former client of Hogenhouck strongly recommended them to us. Hogenhouck simply came out on top!” said the shareholders.
Hein Stoops on this transaction: “The acquisition of Cloudwise marks a crucial step in the expansion of the Odin Group and in the digitization of Dutch education. By joining forces between two dominant players in the market—Cloudwise and Heutink ICT—we can accelerate innovation in education. This introduced a certain degree of complexity into the transaction process. Through very close collaboration and short lines of communication with both the shareholders and management, we were able to work together to overcome the challenges and successfully complete the transaction.”
