technologyreseller.co.uk 19 done encouraging partners to continue along the path from Cyber Essentials to Cyber Essentials Plus to ISO 27001. We’ve got many more partners doing CE Plus than before, and a lot of those CE Plus partners are now doing ISO 27001 to boost security and help them stand out from the crowd.” AI and automation Another area in which partners can expect to see significant activity next year is AI. All Shaw can say for the time being is that Elovade is exploring its approach to AI and automation, paying particular attention to how it can add value to channel partners that have generally struggled to monetise the technology and, in many cases, don’t even have the confidence in their own capabilities to have productive conversations with clients. Whatever Elovade does introduce in the next 12 months, from cloud marketplaces and training academies to AI and automation and an everexpanding cybersecurity offering, Shaw is confident that some things will stay the same. “Since Elovade acquired us, they have done exactly what they said they wanted to do, which is basically to let a successful business continue to thrive, while supporting us with additional product and technical expertise. As Elovade UK&I, we will continue to benefit from the Group’s resources and investment in new platforms and technologies, while remaining a human-led organisation with extensive expertise and a product specialist structure.” www.elovade.co.uk Elovade UK&I, plus around £1.5 million in turnover and new reseller partners, increasing the latter’s customer base to 2,300 trading partners. “Zen’s five main vendors are MailStore, MDaemon, Backup Assist, usecure and Arista, three of which are very big in Germany, so they were a natural bolt-on for us, especially now that we’re owned by Elovade which has a longstanding relationship with MailStore,” explains Shaw. “Zen were MailStore’s exclusive distributor for the UK and Ireland and that has given us a host of new partners to bring into the wider Elovade UK&I community.” Shaw adds that Elovade UK&I is also experiencing good organic growth powered by the strong performance of its three main cybersecurity vendors – Heimdal, Knowbe4 and Keeper – and growing interest in compliance, driven by awareness of supply chain risk and imminent new regulations like the Cyber Security and Resilience Bill, which will bring many MSPs within its scope. “We’ve seen really fast growth with Sendmarc in that DMARC space. That’s now a £1 million-plus vendor for us, which from a standing start is pretty good. Both CyberSmart and Adoptech, another good British company, are growing well and they will be big contributors to our final 2026 number. “One of the reasons we signed Adoptech, which simplifies security compliance for MSPs and their customers, is because an MSP can look very bad, very quickly if it’s not got its own house in order with the tooling that’s now available. We’ve seen an uptick in that and greater focus on supply chain risk thanks in part to the work the NCSC has “Elovade wants to be the panEuropean VAD that partners want to work with and is positioning itself very much as the European offering: we’re owned by a European private equity house; we only trade in Europe; our infrastructure is in Europe; our people are in Europe; and, although we are becoming quite a big business now, north of €150 million, we still have local European teams.” Importantly, this includes the ability to sign vendors that meet the needs of local customers. “It’s not all about European group vendors,” says Shaw. “We still have a strong focus on the UK and have recently launched a couple of (initially) UK-specific vendors. One is Supply Guard, a very young UK company focusing on supply chain risk. The other is an MSP-specific tool called HighGround, again UK-only for now, which gives MSPs visibility into the security posture of clients, highlighting opportunities to do more business. Although we have a focus on the group portfolio and making sure everyone’s selling the same vendors, in the right circumstances, in specific areas we will work with local providers as well.” A record year The benefits of this approach and being part of a wider organisation are already paying dividends. Brigantia had its best year yet in 2025, some of it as part of Elovade, and Shaw expects 2026 to be even better, with an approximate 30% increase in turnover. This is only partly due to its acquisition on April 30th of Rochdale-based distributor Zen Software, which brought a complementary product offering to COVER STORY Technology, expertise and support built for the channel.
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