UKCloud in liquidation after being struck with winding up order

Public sector cloud services specialist UKCloud has been placed into liquidation after a winding up order was made against the firm and its parent company, Virtual Infrastructure Group.

According to a government notice, the orders were made on 25 October 2022 with Gareth Jonathan Allen appointed by the court as the official receiver to manage the liquidation of both parties.

Allen also has a duty to investigate the cause of the companies’ insolvency and the conduct of current and former directors. He will be assisted by Alan Hudson and Joanne Robinson of Ernst & Young, who were requested by Allen and appointed by the court to take on the role of special managers.

They will be tasked with maintaining the operations of each company as the process of liquidation unfolds. The liquidation strategy will consider the provision of services, transition of contracts and whether a sale is viable.

UKCloud, formerly known as Skyscape, launched a dedicated health division back in 2017, which the company said would provide an open, collaborative and UK sovereign public cloud platform specifically for the healthcare industry, supporting health and care providers, research and life sciences and pharmaceuticals.

The company then launched a new initiative in 2021 which aimed to support and deliver the NHS’ draft data strategy, which was titled ‘Data Saves Lives: Reshaping health and social care with data’.

UKCloud had three trading brands: UKCloud Health, which targeted central organisations, UKCloudX, which focused on defence and national security customers, and UKCloud for local and central government, as well as private organisations.

Their services included data centre modernisation, professional services, and a range of cloud services including Microsoft Azure, OpenStack, Red Hat OpenShift, VMware, disaster recovery as a service, security operations services, and private cloud for Oracle.