Darwin Private Equity has completed the management buyout of Esendex, in a deal worth £11m.

Esendex provides mission-critical application-to-person SMS services to businesses. Its services are used by more than 6,500 businesses around the world to improve customer service, communicate with employees, increase operational efficiency and generate sales. Clients include Ocado, BAA Gatwick, ASOS, Addison Lee, Dun & Bradstreet, ASDA and Virgin Media.

Esendex offers a combination of web-based tools and the ability to provide clients with direct connectivity to their software through flexible APIs. Founded in 2001 by Julian Hucker and Adam Bird, the company has 60 staff, and delivers services in the UK, Ireland, France, Spain, Australia, US and Germany.

Darwin is backing Esendex’s existing management team, led by CEO Geoff Love, and will look to grow the business organically and through acquisition in its existing markets and across Europe. As part of the deal, Tim Duffy, the co-founder and former CEO of MeetingZone, the conferencing and collaboration services provider, will join the Esendex board as Chairman.

“Darwin’s assistance will enable Esendex to fully realise its ambition to become Europe’s leading business SMS provider,” said Love. “We expect to see our revenues double as we increase our share of the rapidly growing A2P SMS market.”