Go Daddy now officially includes strategic financial partners, KKR, Silver Lake and Technology Crossover Ventures. The three powerful technology players have joined Go Daddy, as part of an investment deal that officially closed today. The partnership creates a vibrant technology company poised to expand farther and faster internationally.
Go Daddy has long been the world’s largest provider of Web hosting, domain names and net-new SSL Certificates. This new alliance expands Go Daddy’s resources and is primarily focused on expansion of its cloud-based technology product offerings and acceleration with international growth.
Go Daddy’s growth has been on a fast track for years. In fact, the company is primed for double-digit sales increases for an eighth consecutive year. Since the investment venture was announced July 1, Go Daddy surpassed the 50 million domain name mark, an Internet first, and grew its website hosting base beyond 5.2 million accounts.
“People have asked me, with all the success Go Daddy is having, why bring in partners now? My response is simple. This is the right group of people at just the right time,” said Go Daddy Founder Bob Parsons. “These three firms have what it takes to help lift Go Daddy to the next level. KKR, Silver Lake and TCV each have a keen sense for technology and a proven savvy with international business affairs. We know our new partners can help Go Daddy expand in ways that make sense for both our customers and our company. That’s why I have insisted on continuing as Go Daddy’s single largest shareholder.”
Go Daddy’s product lines include comprehensive hosting solutions, website creation services and building tools, along with online storage, secure SSL Certificates, personalized email with spam and anti-phishing filtering, e-commerce tools, online marketing solutions and more. In recent years, Go Daddy expanded its facilities with data centers in The Netherlands and Singapore to better serve customers in Europe and Asia.
“Go Daddy has always been a market leader with exceptional customer service,” said Herald Chen, Member of KKR. “We have already been working with the Go Daddy team to expand its market leadership through new product offerings and international expansion.”
Greg Mondre, Managing Director of Silver Lake said, “Go Daddy is well positioned to expand with the exponential growth of the Internet. Whether you are a small business or a thriving operation anywhere in the world, Go Daddy has the resources to create or elevate your Web presence … we are absolutely focused on making it easy for small businesses to get bigger.”
TCV Co-Founder General Partner Rick Kimball, “for most anyone to perform at a high level in business right now, having a good website is pivotal. Go Daddy is at the epicenter of cloud-based technology implementation and is primed to offer well-priced, reliable services to people and businesses anywhere in the world.”
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About The Go Daddy Group
Go Daddy is a leading provider of services that enable individuals and businesses to establish, maintain and evolve an online presence. Go Daddy provides a variety of domain name registration plans, as well as website design and hosting packages. Go Daddy has a broad array of cloud-based products and services. These include products such as SSL Certificates, Domains by Proxy private registration, ecommerce website hosting, blog software, search engine optimization utilities, email marketing tools, website design services, website security software and online storage solutions. The Go Daddy Group has more than 51 million domain names under management. Go Daddy registers, renews or transfers more than one domain name every second of every day. GoDaddy.com is the largest worldwide mass-market hosting provider by annual revenue according to Tier1 Research (Mass-Market Hosting Report-Winter 2011) and is the world’s No. 1 domain name registrar according to Name Intelligence, Inc. The Go Daddy Group registered more than one-third of all new domain names created in 2010 for the top six generic top-level domains, or gTLDs, including .com, .net, .org, .info, .biz and .mobi.
