Hosting company Skyberate Internet Services was sold July 24, 2020. Jeffrey Brussen and Sander Dingen, the owners of Skyberate, are transferring the company to Total Webhosting Solutions, a conglomerate of European web hosting companies. Hogenhouck m&a supervised the sale for Skyberate's owners. The sale is a crowning achievement for the entrepreneurs and marks the next step for the company.
Already entrepreneurs in school
The sale of Skyberate was preceded by an entrepreneurial journey that started in school in 2003. Jeffrey Brussen, commercial director of Skyberate, looks back: "Sander and I know each other from high school and our joint decision to study IT almost immediately gave birth to Skyberate. During our education we were not sufficiently challenged in terms of content because we had more faith in Linux and open-source e solutions for online applications. We decided to start Skyberate and host free game and chat services on it to gain knowledge and experience. Purely as a hobby in the beginning, but soon we were filling up Sander's parents' entire Internet connection with our actions. We had to change that and money was needed for a server and good data connections in a data center. We asked our existing 'customers' if they wanted to start paying our subscription fee, in exchange for professionalization of services. Ninety-five percent said yes to that. And so from then on we were 'in business' during our training."
Websites for major brands and campaigns
Jeffrey continues how the next phase of Skyberate went, "After completing our college studies, it was time for the real work. We started focusing full-time on building out Skyberate from 2007 and then shifted our focus to the regular hosting market. In the following years, we increased our market share with a number of acquisitions in order to have a comprehensive and stable base for future growth. In subsequent years, we began to focus on hosting websites that required more complex solutions, for example, to handle large visitor spikes caused by advertising campaigns by Heineken, Mars and Sultana, among others.
Focus on e-commerce hosting
In the years when e-commerce began to grow, Skyberate chose to focus on this growth market, offering solutions for small and large webshops. Sander Dingen, CTO of Skyberate, explains: "Since 2009 our focus has been on the Magento platform because this is a heavier platform and therefore more difficult to host properly. We saw this as a commercial opportunity to provide a good hosting solution. We then managed to conquer a substantial market share of the Dutch Magento hosting market. Besides Magento, we are now also well represented in the WordPress and Shopware sector. For us, the challenge lies in knowing the market needs well and continuing to innovate our offerings and service levels. We are doing that again with our Kubernetes solutions."
No rush
Rik Stikkelbroeck, managing partner of Hogenhouck m&a: "The E-commerce market has greatly increased in size and importance in recent years. Anno 2020, this market in the Netherlands accounts for some €30 billion. This explains the broad interest from the market in hosting parties. For our client it is important that in the process sufficient time and energy is put into making the right choices. After all, it is about the interest of the entrepreneur as well as the proper transfer of the company."
Acting as a team with Hogenhouck m&a
Jeffrey continues: "Before the sale, we did a good job of finding advisors who could guide us through the sales process. We had already done our homework ourselves and had already spoken to potential buyers. But a process like this is still complex and you need a party who can guide you all the way. I learned a lot from the Hogenhouck team and vice versa, I think, about our market and solutions. The cooperation was intensive, with a good division of roles, from strategy to execution. We are very satisfied with the transaction."
Ecosystem for hosting companies
The owners look to the next step with confidence. Jeffrey: "We can now hand the company over to a party that can take the company forward, including internationally. For us personally, it means that we can start doing something new. I assume that new doors will open for us when others are closed. "
Matthieu van Amerongen, CEO of Total Webhosting Solutions, on Skyberate: "Skyberate has managed to create a strong and distinctive position. Jeffrey and Sander have passionately led the company, with a loyal and technically proficient team that puts customers first and delivers a high quality level of service. The market-oriented model of TWS offers the organization the opportunity to further expand its leading position as the e-commerce hosting specialist."
