Northern Ireland's Version 1 welcomes acquisition of London firm for undisclosed sum

Version 1, a digital transformation partner which employs over 500 people at its Belfast office, has acquired UK-based Farsight Consulting for an undisclosed amount.

Farsight Consulting is a London company with a track record in delivering digital transformation projects with organisations across the public sector. Today’s news heralds a strong start to 2024 for Version 1 and marks another milestone in its ambitious growth strategy, adding around £17million (€20m) in revenue and an additional 133 people.

Version 1 already partners with Farsight on several large-scale government projects, and this move will provide a compelling and powerful value proposition to all customers and prospects in this space. Adding the extensive design expertise of Farsight to Version 1’s existing capabilities provides a powerful combination of skills and knowledge from both companies in a single place, making the customer offer one of the strongest on the market. Farsight will specifically bring additional skills to Version 1 through analysis and research, creative problem-solving and user-centred design, with the ability to design, create and transform digital services in some of the most complex areas.

Tom O’Connor, CEO at Version 1, said: “We warmly welcome everyone from the Farsight team to Version 1 and are eager to see the positive impact that this acquisition will have for our customers and potential customers in the public sector space.

“There’s no doubt that this is a perfect match of talent, experience, and expertise which we have already harnessed across several projects that we already collaborate on.

"Farsight operates a closely matched model to ours, so we will be able to quickly realise the synergies and pass on the benefits straight away to our customers. We look forward with anticipation to making this happen.”

Pete Masters, founder and chairman of Farsight, added: “We’re excited to be joining Version 1. We share a common set of values and aspirations, and Version 1 has demonstrated a similar commitment to developing people and providing high-quality services to customers. Our combined efforts will accelerate our mission which has always been to solve complex problems in a way that makes a real difference to users and to society. We’re proud of what we’ve achieved so far and by combining our capabilities, we think we can achieve even more together.”

The deal is subject to clearance by the National Security and Investment Act 2021.