Testplant acquires NCC Group’s Web Performance Division and rebrands the combined company to Eggplant

London-based test automation specialist Eggplant (formerly Testplant) has announced the acquisition of NCC Group’s Web Performance Division. NCC Group is a global expert in cyber security and risk mitigation. The acquisition adds a SaaS-based, user-centric application performance platform, as well as a portfolio of customers, including Barclays, John Lewis, House of Fraser and Sainsbury’s Bank. Eggplant also gains a team of testing, monitoring and data science experts focused on the digital experience. In light of the expanded product offering, Testplant is also rebranding the combined company to Eggplant, the name of its product suite. The NCC Group Web Performance offering (which evolved from the company formerly known as ‘Site Confidence’) adds synthetic monitoring, real user monitoring (RUM), performance analysis, load testing and analytics products to the Eggplant suite and hosted platform immediately. The product suite enhancements will allow Eggplant to offer integrated AI-driven continuous testing and monitoring against critical business objectives. This will enable customers to ‘shift right’ in order to release apps quicker than ever, while continuing their testing in production, identifying live problems, providing predictive analytics and recommendations on bug fixes, the company said. Dr. John Bates, CEO of Eggplant, said: “This is a key milestone in our growth strategy and we welcome the NCC Group’s Web Performance team and its customers to our organisation. There has never been a greater demand for optimising digital experiences and with the addition of new products and expertise, Eggplant can now more easily monitor, analyse and enhance the online customer experience, as well as accelerating the speed of delivery, quality and effectiveness of new digital products and services.” Simon Austin, Technical Director at NCC Group Web Performance, added: “We’ve built a strong offering in the marketplace and are proud of the customers we have in our portfolio. Eggplant has a great reputation in the industry and the combination will offer customers a new and innovative model for continuous business assurance, allowing them to deliver the very best in digital services, products and experiences to their own customers.” NCC Group completed the sale of the Web Performance business to Eggplant for immediate cash consideration of £7.5 million on a cash and debt free basis (subject to any final post completion adjustments to working capital).