Miss Group acquires fastest-growing private VPN provider

International web hosting business Miss Group has completed its fourth acquisition this year to date acquiring Swedish VPN provider PrivateVPN.

Founded in 2009 and headquartered in Sweden, the company provides VPN services to over 75,000 customers globally. In the 12 months to March 2022, PrivateVPN reported revenues of SEK29m.

PrivateVPN is the fastest-growing private VPN product worldwide, enabling customers to easily connect to high security servers to provide encrypted and safe communication. It also protects its customers’ IP from third party companies. 

Fredrik Björklund, Co-founder and CEO of Miss Group, said: “The opportunity to invest in PrivateVPN presented a unique situation to acquire the fastest-growing private VPN product worldwide and is an important addition to our growing portfolio. Alongside the Group’s other licensed security product offerings, this acquisition provides a foundation for building out a broader security product portfolio within Miss Group to support our growing international customer base.”

Martin Müller, Founder of PrivateVPN, said: “We are very pleased to welcome Miss Group as new owners and investors of PrivateVPN. The investment by Miss Group in PrivateVPN will strengthen not only the organisation, but also PrivateVPN's global footprint. With a rapidly growing market where the need for secure internet connections is greater than ever, I am convinced that with Miss Group PrivateVPN will be able to provide stronger VPN services to the market.”

Martin Müller will leave the business post acquisition, with day-to-day management transitioning to Miss Group’s established management team in Sweden.

Perwyn, the family-backed private equity business, acquired a majority position in Miss Group in February 2020 to support the growth ambitions of the business through international expansion and ongoing M&A. Private VPN takes the total number of acquisitions completed under Perwyn ownership to 12, and the total number of acquisitions completed by Miss Group since 2018 to 21. 

Mark Blower, Partner at Perwyn and Miss Group board member, added: “We have successfully completed four key acquisitions already this year and our pipeline for 2022 continues to strengthen to realise further international growth. PrivateVPN is an excellent example of the new products and services we’re seeking to add to Miss Group’s portfolio to provide businesses around the world with the best-in-class web services and support.”

Miss Group’s ambitious growth trajectory saw proforma revenues for the year ending December 2021 reach €66 million with a 43% EBITDA margin. The Group anticipates reaching €100 million turnover and 45% EBITDA margin within the next 12 months. In May 2022, Miss Group acquired one of Sweden’s largest web hosting companies, Cloudnet, and US-based WordPress specialist Cloud Access.

Miss Group was supported on this transaction by: 

• Legal advice – Squire Patton Boggs (Matt Canipa and Mona Mojtabavi)
• Financial due diligence – EY (Steven Kingham and Svetlana Stewart)
• Corporate advisory – Anecta / Translink Corporate Finance (Fredrik Ullberg and Sebastian Süllmann)

About Miss Group

Founded in 2014, Miss Group is an international web hosting group that offers a range of hosting related services at competitive prices including web hosting, domain registration, VPS, dedicated servers, website builder, SSL-Certificate, SEO Tools, web security and domain management. Miss Group is also an ICANN-accredited Domain Name registrar via Name ISP. Miss Group is a well-established operator in its core markets, with a customer service-oriented model driving industry-leading performance metrics for its >700,000 web hosting customers. The majority of Miss Group is owned by Perwyn, an international private equity and growth equity investor.

About Perwyn

Founded in 2013, Perwyn is a family-backed, international private and growth equity investor. Perwyn works closely with investee companies applying strategic and operational expertise in addition to providing capital. Perwyn is free from the usual private equity funding cycles, focusing above all on our investments rather than fundraising. We approach investment with an evergreen model and believe in genuine partnership with management teams, seeking to facilitate long term growth and development.

There are two main focuses of our business. Perwyn Private Equity is an active lead investor, seeking buyout opportunities in established, growing, cash generative market leaders headquartered in the UK or Europe where it can make a material impact on growth and profitability. We invest in businesses with an EV of £/€50-300m, seeking partnership investment support for growth initiatives or transition. 

Perwyn Growth Capital invests in growing businesses across the same markets, with a passion for backing entrepreneurs and founders on their winning strategy. We seek primarily growth equity investments of £/€20m-100m.