One Equity Partners acquires cloud services provider Liquid Web and forms new holding company, CloudOne Digital
One Equity Partners (“OEP”) today announced that it has completed the acquisition of Liquid Web, a provider of managed cloud services along with significant bare metal assets in both North America and Western Europe, creating an expanded offering known as CloudOne Digital , a new platform for consolidation within the cloud hosting sector. The senior leadership team of Liquid Web will transition to expanded roles in the new, larger CloudOne platform with Jim Geiger as CEO, Carrie Wheeler as COO and Joe Oesterling as CTO.
Founded in 1997 and headquartered in Atlanta, Georgia, the Liquid Web Family of brands (Liquid Web, Nexcess, StellarWP, Modern Tribe) currently operates 10 global data centers with more than 500,000 sites under management. Collectively with Liquid Web and its brand acquisitions, CloudOne Digital will serve over 187,000 clients worldwide, providing managed hosting services, managed applications and related software solutions as well as helping manage mission-critical e-commerce application tools. They also have 2.5 million freemium customers of their software solutions. LiquidWeb, Nexcess, StellarWP and Modern Tribe will continue to operate as business units of CloudOne Digital.
“CloudOne Digital sits at the intersection of multiple favorable industry trends including the increasing complexity of enterprise IT, continued growth of e-commerce, demand for off-premise servers and storage and the growing need for multi-cloud models,” said Carlo Padovano, Managing Director, One Equity Partners. “This is the first step in an aggressive expansion strategy we have planned for CloudOne Digital, applying OEP’s transformational acquisition strategy to combine and integrate complementary businesses in the multi-cloud infrastructure segment.”
CloudOne Digital’s businesses will offer a broad portfolio of cloud products that meet the needs of web-dependent small and mid-sized businesses engaging in commerce cloud; cloud servers for developers and businesses with highly persistent, compute-intensive workloads; and managed private cloud for mid-market businesses that require enterprise grade infrastructure and solutions.
“OEP is an experienced, highly-skilled technology investor, and we are eager to embark on this partnership in executing a collective vision of CloudOne Digital becoming a diversified, global multi- cloud platform of scale,” said Geiger. “We live in a multi-cloud world and now, more than ever, businesses seek reliable data hosting and related managed and unmanaged infrastructure solutions. CloudOne Digital offers best-in-class capabilities all with the support these online businesses need to grow and succeed. It is the evolution of our strategy to become the leader in cloud computing for small and midsize businesses.”
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About One Equity Partners
One Equity Partners (“OEP”) is a middle market private equity firm focused on the industrial, healthcare, and technology sectors in North America and Europe. The firm seeks to build market-leading companies by identifying and executing transformative business combinations. OEP is a trusted partner with a differentiated investment process, a broad and senior team, and an established track record generating long-term value for its partners. Since 2001, the firm has completed more than 300 transactions worldwide. OEP, founded in 2001, spun out of JP Morgan in 2015. The firm has offices in New York, Chicago, Frankfurt and Amsterdam. For more information, please visit www.oneequity.com.
About Liquid Web
The Liquid Web Family of Brands represent the Commerce Cloud Capabilities in the CloudOne Digital brand. For more than 25 years, these brands have delivered software, solutions, and managed services for mission-critical sites, stores, and applications to SMBs and the designers, developers, and agencies who create for them. Liquid Web (Managed Hosting), Nexcess (Digital Commerce Cloud), StellarWP (WordPress Software and Tools) and Modern Tribe (Enterprise WordPress Agency Crafting Digital Solutions) have more than 500,000+ sites under management, over 187,000 customers and 2 million+ free version software users. Collectively, the companies have assembled a world-class team of industry experts, provide unparalleled service from solution engineers available 24/7/365, and own and manage ten global data centers. Learn more about the Liquid Web Family of Brands.
About CloudOne Digital
CloudOne Digital is an innovative portfolio of cloud-based solutions focused on the needs of online businesses. Offering best-in-class infrastructure and cloud capabilities spanning the needs of small entrepreneurs, small and midsize businesses, developers and midmarket enterprise workloads – all with the support online businesses need to grow and succeed. For more information, visit cloudonedigital.com.
