British-Israeli IT security company Cape Technologies announced on Monday that it will acquire ExpressVPN, one of the leading providers of virtual private networks (VPNs), for $936 million. Founded in Israel in 2010, Cape has developed a number of data protection and security products which it claims are currently used by approximately 2.5 million paying customers worldwide. The company has been listed on the London Stock Exchange since 2014 in a section for small and medium-sized companies.
ExpressVPN is one year older than the buyer and is based in the British Virgin Islands. With 3000 servers in 94 countries for encryption tunnels, the company describes itself as “one of the world’s largest providers of VPN services” and “a clear supporter of Internet freedom and privacy.”
Cape boss Ido Ehrlichmann comes in the face acquisition notification As a fan of ExpressVPN. Controlling your own digital presence is now a “focus of interest to every technology user”. The two companies, whose brands are to be maintained, wanted to work together to promote innovative tools to protect data and user rights. ExpressVPN co-founder Dan Pomerantz was pleased to have new capital to drive product development.
capes acquisition
Cape employs approximately 350 people in eight offices around the world, including Tel Aviv, Austin, Paris, London and Obach-Pallenberg in Germany. Israelis for the past few years Made several major acquisitions in the VPN and data security sector. These include the acquisition of GhostVPN in 2017 and VPN provider Zenmate in 2018. Six months ago, Cape acquired WebSelenese, an Israeli provider of privacy and security-related news and product information.
Not everyone is comfortable with the company’s desire to buy. Observers such as IT expert Felix von Leitner aka Fefe note that Israel is likely to become a stronghold for VPN services. A growing portion of network communications, which are encrypted over long distances, can be recorded and intercepted relatively easily by the country’s secret services such as the Mossad. There is no end-to-end encryption with a VPN and the data is available in plain text from technology service providers.
(olb)
