A Surrey-based IT management services specialist has been valued at £23 million after it was bought by a US group.

Touchpaper, a Woking-based business operating across Europe, Asia and the US, has become part of IT infrastructure management group Avocent.

The deal, which was funded through existing resources and debt, is part of a strategy to enhance the Alabama-based group’s offering in the IT operations management market.

Touchpaper’s technology will be integrated into Avocent’s management software systems to enable service desk technicians to consolidate call logging, problem management, configuration management and change management into a single application.

“The acquisition delivers on Avocent’s promise to help IT operations handle and simplify the growing complexity of managing data centre and desktop assets in today’s organisations,” said Avocent’s Edwin Harper.

The vendors were advised by Cobalt, a technology, media and telecoms corporate finance specialist, which worked on their management buy-out seven years ago.

Its team was led by partner Paddy MccGwire, who said the deal highlights the continued interest from US buyers in UK technology businesses. “This is the fourth disposal Cobalt has advised on in the last year involving a US company.”