UltraServe founder and CEO Samuel Yeats has agreed to sell a 40% stake in his 14-year-old company to Hackett which he says will speed up expansion overseas, initially in Europe and further into Asia.

UltraServe will also establish its Lighthouse customer management platform under a standalone company Orchestrated to support telecommunications carriers and Managed Service Providers (MSPs).

Yeats said UltraServe would benefit from both the extra working capital and “from the credibility of having Simon Hackett as a major investor.”

“We can now take advantage of Amazon Web Services’ global Cloud infrastructure and other cloud platforms to expand very efficiently in other countries.

“In addition, UltraServe has built a Cloud infrastructure orchestration system called Lighthouse, with some very unique features that let us offer a managed services layer across Amazon, VMware and other clouds, which equips us to keep our vendors honest.

“We are now commercialising Lighthouse for use in the telco and Managed Service Provider and are working closely with some very large organisations.  When the inevitable question about backing is asked, Simon’s investment will give us additional credibility and offer greater assurance to customers. Simon’s involvement will leverage his experience and his passion for the telco sector.”

According to Yeats, UltraServe has thousands of servers under management for customers that include some of Australia’s leading ecommerce retailers including Catch of the Day, Deals Direct, Appliances Online, General Pants and Radio Rentals.

Hackett said he was investing in UltraServe as it was the “right company at the right time.” “UltraServe has smart leadership, a strong market presence and unique IP that will scale internationally.

“As companies embrace Cloud infrastructure to provide more on-demand services for their customers, UltraServe has the opportunity to transform its Australian achievements into international success and also to leverage its hard-won expertise into a new segment of the market.”

Hackett said his long-time colleague John Lindsay - former Chief Technology Officer for both iiNet and Internode - will take a seat on the UltraServe board and work closely with the company’s management “to develop its services to even better meet the needs of the carrier and ISP markets.”