Accenture is acquiring Gekko, a French AWS cloud services company. The acquisition will expand Accenture’s capabilities in the French and Benelux markets to supporting enterprise migrations, cloud enterprise software development and business transformation services.

The acquisition requires prior consultation with the two companies’ works councils in France, and will be subject to customary closing conditions. Financial terms of the transaction have not been disclosed.

Gekko has more than 100 trained cloud professionals, with over 85 AWS certifications and an established relationship with AWS. Gekko is an AWS Advanced Partner, holds an AWS competency in Storage and is an AWS Authorised Training partner. Gekko is also part of the AWS Solution Provider and Well Architected Framework programme.

Since its inception in 2015, Gekko has helped more than 80 clients, including some of the largest French companies, design, deploy and maintain their cloud infrastructure.

Accenture says that the acquisition will strengthen its industry-specific cloud capabilities in AWS technologies for clients in France and across Europe. The combination of Gekko’s skills in AWS with Accenture’s industry knowledge and experience in global large-scale cloud initiatives would now provide highly differentiated end-to-end services to the European market.

“Aligned with our development strategy, the acquisition of Gekko would be another significant addition because it would give clients more support for public cloud options. Gekko would also be a major opportunity to accelerate our growth strategy in France,” said Olivier Girard, Accenture’s Geographic Unit managing director for France and Benelux_. “_Accenture’s advantage is our ability to keep pace with evolving customer expectations. Our clients call on Accenture to help them innovate and transform their business. Gekko would bring key cloud, AI and DevOps skills and would help us serve a greater and more diverse range of clients in France and the broader European market.”

Cedric Le Yeuc’h, managing director at Accenture Technology in France and Benelux, said, “The acquisition of Gekko would underscore our multi-cloud strategy and would expand our AWS capabilities for clients to realise incremental business value through a cloud adoption and DevOps transformation. It would increase our on-shore AWS fully automated cloud operations and FinOps capabilities with Gekko’s delivery centre located in the west of France. The acquisition of Gekko would enhance our position as one of the leading providers of AWS expertise and cloud transformation in the French market.”

“In the fast-growing cloud market, joining Accenture would be a unique opportunity to help even more organisations to leverage journey to the cloud for accelerating their digital transformations, growing their businesses and improving customer experiences,” said Roland Esnis and Julien Favre, co-founders and CEOs of Gekko. “By combining the renowned talent, reputation and capabilities of Gekko with Accenture’s strong team of AWS practitioners in France, we would be better positioned to lead the industry in cloud services in France.”