The two companies form team.blue, serving 1.2 million customers across Europe

Hg, a specialist private equity investor focused on software and service businesses, announces today that it has invested in TransIP Group (“TransIP”), a leading hosting and Virtual Private Server (‘VPS’) provider based in the Netherlands. The terms of the transaction are not disclosed.

TransIP will join forces with Combell Group (“Combell”), a European leader in mass hosting services for SMEs.

Together the two companies create team.blue, a leading digital enabler for companies and entrepreneurs across Europe.  team.blue will deliver high innovation and quality services to a combined 1.2 million companies, bringing together some of the most experienced people in the industry with the aim to be a true tech partner for customers.

TransIP offers managed and unmanaged internet services. The credo of TransIP Group is to ‘Make Advanced Simple’, which it does for more than 400,000 customers so that they can excel in their digital capabilities.

Hg invested in Combell at the end of 2018. Established in 1999, Combell is a leading mass hosting player in Belgium, Denmark, the Netherlands, Sweden and Switzerland. Combell has over 800,000 SME customers and is a one-stop partner for web hosting, domains, e-commerce and application solutions.

Jonas Dhaenens, founder of Combell, will become Group CEO of team.blue. Ali Niknam, founder of TransIP, remains a major investor and will join the board of directors.

Hg’s investment in TransIP will come from the Genesis 8 Fund and represents Hg’s ninth investment in the tech services sector, following the recent investments in Zitcom (a Danish SME-focused hosting and cloud solutions provider), Register Group (a provider of online hosting services to SMEs, previous known as Dada) and IT Relation (a Danish supplier of managed IT services to SMEs).

Nick Jordan and Joris Van Gool at Hg, commented: “Hg is excited to be part of building a European champion in digital services for SMEs and entrepreneurs. Both TransIP and Combell are high quality businesses that we have admired for a long time and we’re delighted to support the formation of team.blue, creating an entrepreneurially led group, providing high-quality and innovative services to its combined customer base, with plans to further expand its activities across Europe.”