Smoothwall seeks further market penetration after it acquires Future Digital

Smoothwall, based in Leeds, said the deal for the Dorset-headquartered company would bolster its credentials in the safeguarding sector.

The acquisition comes as Smoothwall continues to grow its presence in the UK and internationally following the appointment of former Tesla director Georg Ell in May this year.

Future Digital provides real-time, cloud-based, monitoring solutions with highly visual and intuitive dashboards and boasts a client base of around 2,000 firms.

A spokesperson said that its offering would “perfectly complement” Smoothwall’s Visigo offering which additionally offers human-moderated monitoring and advanced AI capabilities.

“By offering both solutions, Smoothwall is now able to provide customers with a range of safeguarding options, suited to their needs”, she said.

Mr Ell said: “We are thrilled to incorporate Future Digital into Smoothwall, with our two product sets complementing each other well.

“This will allow us to offer a bigger range of safeguarding and filtering services based on our customers’ requirements.

“Smoothwall has a great reputation across a number of sectors and bringing Future Digital into the fold only strengthens that.

“In education alone we will now be serving over 10,000 schools globally.

“We believe that safeguarding is a fundamental duty in organisations of all types and sizes and our mission is to support that with robust, powerful, user-friendly solutions.”

Smoothwall is currently operating in 32 per cent of primary schools, 37 per cent of secondary schools, 15 per cent of independent schools and 19 per cent of higher and further education institutions.

It is based on Leeds Valley Park near Belle Isle.