27 Dec 2017

ParentPay Limited, the UK’s leading provider of online payment and income management for schools, has acquired Cypad, a leader in tablet and cloud solutions for school catering, local authorities and catering service organisations.

The deal extends ParentPay’s existing dinner money management and parent meal booking application with a suite of apps that support the entire process of providing a school meals service: selecting meals; managing production; recording meals taken; service monitoring, and providing performance indicators.

The combination of ParentPay and Cypad creates a comprehensive, yet cost-effective tablet based solution for individual primary schools, multi-academy trusts, local authorities through to the largest school contract catering operators in the UK. Together, the companies employ more than 200 people, serve over 12,500 schools in more than 190 local authorities across the UK, and provide services to more than 4 million parents.

Jonn Fredericks, Managing Director of Cypad, commenting on the deal said: “ParentPay’s leading position in the school payments market and its continued strong growth, brings a compelling opportunity for Cypad. Gaining access to ParentPay’s significant customer base and leveraging their highly successful national field sales operation, means we can expand in ways we never thought possible. Together, we can deliver an integrated school meal solution for individual primary schools, through to a complete catering management service to large scale contract operators. We’re excited about the journey ahead, and the opportunity to build deeply integration solutions that deliver more for our customers.”

Alan Bristow, CEO of ICON Corporate Finance who acted for Cypad on the exit added: "We previously sold Jonn's business Cymap in 2000 to the Hungarian software Group Graphisoft and he was one of ICON's very first clients. So I am delighted to see him join an elite group of software entrepreneurs who have once again disrupted the market and created another very successful software business. We are delighted to have acted for Jonn on the exit of Cypad, he has been at the forefront of innovation in the cloud and it is no surprise he attracted the attention of the market leader in the U.K."

Clint Wilson, Group Chief Executive of ParentPay added: “Enriching Cypad’s product capabilities with our scale, reach and delivery expertise, adds a new dimension to the business, allowing us to extend deeper into our customers’ operations, delivering even greater value to them.”