Miss Group expands global footprint with first Czech acquisition

Fast-growth international web hosting business Miss Group has completed its latest acquisition – Web4U – located in the Czech Republic.

Founded in 2000 and headquartered in Prague, the business is one of the leading providers of web hosting, domain registrations, mail and server hosting services to over 15,000 unique customers across the public sector and SME market. In the 12 months to 31 December 2021, Web4U reported revenues of CZK38m.

Web4U’s 11 staff will join Miss Group’s team of over 300 people, adding to its customer base of >700,000 businesses globally in the Nordic and DACH regions, Europe and North America.

Fredrik Björklund, co-founder and CEO of Miss Group, said: “The acquisition of Web4U is an important addition to our growing portfolio as we look to expand our international footprint into selective new geographies. Web4U’s impressive client base, technical expertise and knowledge of the Czech market will further strengthen our service offering to customers, as well as providing Web4U’s customer base with access to an international network of products and services to support their businesses as they grow.”

Martin Kukačka, co-founder of Web4U, said: “With the entrance of Miss Group, Web4U gains an excellent and strong partner who is not planning a revolution in the company, but rather its evolution. I personally believe that our already exceptional team will be strengthened and Web4U will gain access to new technologies that will improve our existing service offering and provide customers with a wide range of new services.”

Lukáš Kunovský, co-founder of Web4U, added: “Being part of the Miss Group family – a truly global player – will undoubtedly further strengthen Web4U’s operating competencies and our current market position in the region.”

Perwyn, a European private equity company, 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. Web4U takes the total number of acquisitions completed under Perwyn ownership to 13, and the total number of acquisitions completed by Miss Group since 2018 to 22. 

Mark Blower, Partner at Perwyn and Miss Group board member, added: “Web4U is the fifth acquisition completed this year and our pipeline for 2022 continues to strengthen to realise further international growth. Web4U is an excellent platform from which to build our presence in the Czech Republic, and we are delighted to welcome the Web4U team to Miss Group.”

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, and in June 2022, Miss Group acquired Swedish VPN provider, Private VPN.           

Web4U was advised on the transaction by:

• Transaction advisory – IMAP REDBAENK (Radek Schmied, Luděk Plíšek and Zdeněk Zavadil)
• Legal advisory – Hladký Legal (Lucie Hladká, Pavla Chamulová)

Miss Group was supported on this transaction by: 

• Legal advice – Squire Patton Boggs (Matt Canipa, Radek Váňa and Mona Mojtabavi)
• Financial due diligence – EY (Steven Kingham and Svetlana Stewart)

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, a European private equity company.

About Perwyn

Perwyn is a European private equity company specialising in buyout and growth capital investments in four sectors: Technology, Services, Healthcare, and Food & Ingredients. Typically, Perwyn invests between £20 and £200m in a limited number of businesses with the potential for significant growth.

Perwyn invests equity capital, expertise, and relentless energy to help ambitious management teams launch new products, capture new markets, and grow. That is all we do. Our substantial, permanent capital base allows us to focus 100% of our time and energy on achieving great things with the companies in which we invest.