CentralNic acquires online brand protection startup SafeBrands for $4.4M to extend its reach beyond French-speaking countries

CentralNic, a London, England company and global registry service provider, today announced it has acquired Canadian-based online brand protection startup SafeBrands for up to $4.4m (€3.6m). According to the transaction agreement, CentralNic will pay €3.0 million upfront and the rest is subject to meeting FY 20 financial objectives. The acquisition will enable CentralNic to extend its reach beyond French-speaking countries

Founded in 1997, SafeBrands helps companies big and small to promote and protect their brand identity online. The company is made up of a team of multidisciplinary experts serving the world’s largest companies and law firms including IP lawyers, strategists, DNS specialists, network engineers, and R&D developers. SafeBrands currently caters only to French-speaking customers.

As part of the acquisition, SafeBrands will add its online brand protection and domain name management products and expertise to CentralNic’s industry-leading suite of digital services for businesses.

To date, SafeBrands’ proprietary state-of-the-art internet monitoring tools and enforcement expertise have only been available to companies in French-speaking markets. CentralNic will make them available to companies globally, to help them protect their revenue streams in digital channels – as part of CentralNic’s global Brand Services, which currently serves clients worldwide through teams based in the US, the UK, Germany, Canada, Australia, New Zealand, and a dozen other countries.

Ben Crawford, CentralNic Group CEO, commented: “This is an important next step for CentralNic in our strategy to provide comprehensive end-to-end digital domain name and online brand protection services to corporate clients, globally. We are delighted that SafeBrands, its talented team of digital and IP protection experts, cutting-edge software and service portfolio, and established business relationships, are becoming part of our Group.”

Charles Tiné, CEO and founder of SafeBrands, added: “In the fast-growing domain name market, this represents a fantastic opportunity for SafeBrands to join the CentralNic family with the clear ambition to create a world leader in corporate domain management, online brand protection, and DNS security. We share many common values that are reflected in the many synergies between our teams and technical platforms. CentralNic’s resources and growth strategy are aligned with our ambitions and point to a very exciting future. After 23 years of organic and independent development, Frederic Guillemaut and myself are convinced to have found the perfect fit for SafeBrands’ V2.”

Founded in 1995 with over 45 million domains using its platforms, CentralNic provides domain name registry and registrar services. CentralNic drives the growth of the global digital economy by developing and managing software platforms allowing businesses to buy subscriptions to domain names and related services, including protecting their brands online.