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| Type | Private |
|---|---|
| Industry | |
| Founded | 2008 Slough, Berkshire |
| Founders | |
| Headquarters |
Birmingham ,
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Area served |
United Kingdom, Republic of Ireland, India, Australia, Canada and United States |
Key people |
Gordon Wilson (CEO) |
| Revenue |
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| Owner |
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Number of employees |
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| Website | oneadvanced |
£317m (2022)
£29m (2022)Advanced Computer Software Group Ltd. (operating as Advanced) is a British private company founded by Vin Murria in 2008 with its main headquarters in Slough, Berkshire. It provides information technology services including hosting and cloud based systems to the NHS and many other organisations. Through various acquisitions, in 2016 it became the third largest software provider in the UK market while employing over 2,400 people with a customer base of more than 20,000 organisations. Later in the year it would go on to rebrand itself to "Advanced" while opening a new central headquarters in Birmingham's Mailbox.
History
Advanced was founded by Vin Murria in 2008. Originally listed on the Alternative Investment Market in 2008 with a cash value of £3 million it was bought by Vista Equity Partners in 2014 for £765 million. From the 18% stake Murria held in Advanced she took £140.2m from the sale making her one of the wealthiest women in the UK. Murria was awarded an OBE for services to the UK digital economy and advancing women in the software sector in the 2018 New Year Honours.
At the time of sale, Vista brought in a new leadership team including current chief executive officer Gordon Wilson, and chief financial officer Andrew Hicks.
In August 2019, Vista sold a 50% stake in Advanced to BC Partners for £2 billion including debt.
Health and Care Cyber Incident
In August 2022, Advanced experienced a cybersecurity incident caused by LockBit 3.0 ransomware. Adastra, Caresys, Odyssey, Carenotes, Crosscare, Staffplan and eFinancials products were all affected, with varying downtime and recovery. As of October 2022, some systems are still unavailable.
Perpetrators of the attack were able to extract information relating to 16 Staffplan and Caresys customers.
Locations
Advanced's head office is located in Mailbox, Birmingham with other office locations in Newcastle, Ashford, Dublin, York and Willerby. The US head office is located in Atlanta, Georgia. Advanced also have offices in Bangalore, Karnataka and Baroda, Gujarat, India which is where the primary development function is located.
Acquisitions
| Acquisition | Date | Price | Notes |
|---|---|---|---|
| Serco Learning | December 2012 | £7.25m | A deal for Serco's education unit, bringing software including Facility CMIS Administration with Facility ePortal and Progresso for primary and secondary schools, timetabling software Scheduler, and CMIS and CMIS Go for the higher education sector. |
| Computer Software Holdings | March 2013 | £110m | Paid for partly by the share placing that helped raise £44m for ACS. |
| Compass | February 2014 | £14.5m | Advanced extended its reach in the education software market by purchasing Chester-based CRM specialist Compass Computer Consultants. Compass was later renamed "ProSuite". |
| ConsultCRM | April 2014 | ||
| Hudman | July 2017 | A Welsh cloud SaaS solution, Hudman was later renamed "Business Cloud Essentials". | |
| Information Balance | March 2018 | £2.5m | |
| Science Warehouse | March 2018 | £17m | A British developer of cloud SaaS procurement solutions for £17 million. Science Warehouse was later renamed "Cloud Marketplace" |
| Docman | July 2018 | £90m | Advanced acquired PCTI Solutions. Their product, Docman, maintains one billion records and documents for more than 40,000,000 patients in the UK, including the whole of Scotland. A problem with version 7 of the Docman platform in September 2018 meant letters received through NHSmail, automatically scanned to be added to patient records, were not uploaded. About 6,000 GP practices using the electronic document transfer function were affected. |
| Oyez | March 2019 | £23.2m | |
| Kirona | April 2019 | £55.1m | Acquired from Livingbridge and Gresham House. |
| Modern Systems | July 2019 | $26m | |
| Careworks | November 2019 | €21.5m | |
| Tikit | March 2020 | £46.8m | Acquired for significantly less than the original £80 million asking price. |
| Mitrefinch | October 2020 | £90.6m | Acquired from LDC who completed a management buyout in 2016 for £20 million. |
| Clear Review | October 2020 | £26m | Acquired from Stuart Hearn (entrepreneur and former Sony Music HR Director) and Mercia Asset Management |
| Certainty | February 2021 | £16.3m | |
| bksb | May 2021 | £19.3m | Acquired from West Nottinghamshire College. |
| Smart Apprentices | May 2021 | £28m | Acquired from entrepreneur Fiona Hudson-Kelly. |
| Isosec | September 2021 | £22.3m | A previous acquisition attempt from rival firm Imprivata was abandoned in May 2021 after a CMA investigation. |
| cloudtrade | October 2021 | £25.8m | |
| Portt | April 2022 | £16.05m | |
| Decision Time | April 2022 | £22m | |
| Pellcomp | June 2022 | £8.1m |
List of Software
- Cloud School (formerly Progresso)
- Facility CMIS Administration
- Scheduler
- Facility ePortal
- CMIS
- CMIS Go
- FM Easy
- OpenAccounts
- Advanced HR (formerly Cloud HR)
- OpenPeople
- OpenWMS
- Odyssey
- Exchequer
- eFinancials
- eBis
- ProAchieve
- ProMonitor
- ProSolution
- TALENT Ticketing Solutions
- Integra
- Business Cloud Essentials
- Advanced Financials (formerly Cloud Financials)
- Staffplan
- Caresys
- Carenotes
- Adastra
- Crosscare
- V1 Document Management
- Advanced Data Automation (formerly Cloud trade)