Bridewell and I-TRACING Are Entering Into a Strategic Partnership to Create the Independent European Leader in Cyber Security Services

We are proud to announce that we are joining forces with I-TRACING, a leading French managed cybersecurity service provider (MSSP) to create the independent European cybersecurity services champion. 

The partnership is being supported by the founders and managing partners of I-TRACING, Theodore Vrangos, Michel Vujicic, Laurent Besset, with co-control investors Oakley Capital and Eurazeo, together with Anthony Young, our founder and CEO, and the management teams of both companies. Sagard NewGen will also reinvest in the transaction.  

This alliance brings together the market leaders in two of the largest markets in Europe thereby creating a European cybersecurity one-stop services powerhouse to protect enterprise and mid-market clients globally at a time of rapidly escalating cyber risk. The transaction is subject to regulatory clearances.   

I-TRACING shares our focus on providing the highest quality of service, customer satisfaction and technical ability. Our joint vision of creating a leading European cybersecurity services company with local expertise and accreditations ensures clients get the highest level of specialism and service on their doorstep but with the ability to tap into a global network. 

I-TRACING was founded in Paris in 2005, and is the French leading managed cybersecurity services provider (‘MSSP’), addressing all the most critical needs of its blue-chip clients. Benefiting from its one-stop-shop positioning, the company’s strong differentiation edge is created by its unique security operations center (‘SOC’) managed services offering, protecting complex environments on a 24/7 basis, leveraging an integrated international ‘follow-the-sun’ operating model. I-TRACING operates in France, Canada, Hong Kong, Malaysia, China and Switzerland and employs over 700 cybersecurity experts globally. 

Bridewell was founded in Reading in 2013 and has quickly grown to be the leading independent cybersecurity services company in the UK. Bridewell provides managed and professional cybersecurity services across Information Technology (IT) and Operational Technology (OT) environments, from architecture and design, governance, risk and compliance, fully managed SOC, penetration testing and data privacy, with a strong differentiation edge towards Critical National Infrastructure and other highly regulated and complex enterprise clients. Bridewell has operations in the UK and the USA and employs over 300 employees globally.  

Under common ownership, our partnership with I-TRACING will create the leading pure-play cybersecurity services group in Europe, with the shared ambition of further accelerating growth and continuing to scale across Europe and the USA, capitalizing on our positioning to continue to attract the best talent in the cybersecurity sector.   

Together with I-TRACING, we will be able to leverage the extensive global networks, sector expertise and financing capabilities of our investors Oakley Capital, Eurazeo and Sagard to deliver this strategy, including support with further M&A.  

As our companies share the same entrepreneurial philosophy and human-centric values, we anticipate numerous opportunities as we work more closely together. This covers areas such as: international mobility for consultants addressing new and existing Fortune 500 customers worldwide; sharing I-TRACING’s established follow-the-sun MSSP operations; sharing our knowledge and expertise in CNI security Threat Intelligence and OT; building common expertise and services for AI security; building further in North America, where we are present in USA and I-TRACING has more than 50 engineers and analysts in Canada; and expanding further in Asia. 

In March 2021, we received investment from GCP through a minority partnership transaction to support Anthony Young, Scott Nicholson, and the management team in delivering on our ambitious growth plans. GCP’s technology services specialism and partnership approach has enabled us to significantly invest in leadership, talent, systems and processes alongside refining our GTM proposition, developing proprietary technology, delivering strategic M&A and establishing international operations in the USA.  

Bridewell Founder and CEO Anthony Young said: “Bridewell has had fantastic growth over the last 12 years to become a leader in the UK cybersecurity market and we are now all really excited about growing internationally and being able to support more companies around the world at a time of increased international tensions. I-TRACING and Bridewell, as clear leaders in their markets, backed by the ambitions of Oakley Capital, Eurazeo and Sagard, will ensure we are able to protect more organizations and create a clear leader in the cybersecurity space. I would also like to thank GCP for their invaluable support over the last four years. They understood our business, and their focus on partnership, sustainable ambitious growth and people development has aligned perfectly with our culture as we scaled.” 

Ravi Monteiro, Partner, GCP, said: “The growth of Bridewell over the past four years has been exceptional. It has been a pleasure working with Anthony, Scott, Ruth, Martin, Ben and all the Bridewell team as they continued to build a fantastic business with an incredible culture of going above and beyond for employees and customers alike. We are proud to have supported Bridewell in becoming one of the UK’s leading cybersecurity services businesses, well set for continued growth.”   

Richard Shaw, Partner, GCP, added: “We thank all the Bridewell team for their outstanding performance and are delighted to have been able to work in partnership to support the business with our range of strategic growth initiatives tailored to fast growth knowledge economy businesses. Joining forces with I-TRACING will now enable Bridewell to take its leading cybersecurity services proposition to the world stage and we wish the combined group the very best of future success.”  

Theodore-Michel Vrangos, Co-Founder and President, I-TRACING said: “It is a great honour to welcome Anthony into our partnership. Bridewell as well as I-TRACING are huge success stories. We are sharing common human values, not only professional but also personal, and we all have this tremendous ambition of building the number one cybersecurity independent services group in the world.”