SafeBrands sold to CentralNic

The online brand protection software company joins CentralNic

M & A sell side 2021, January

"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."

Charles Tiné, CEO and founder of SafeBrands

CentralNic acquired SafeBrands, a France-based award-winning innovator and technology pioneer. This positions CentralNic as the European champion for corporate domain portfolio management and online brand protection, as well as one of the top three global leaders available to serve customers in any country.

SafeBrands is a leading French corporate registrar, with a stable and growing base of clients, including some of the leading French brands. It offers registration management for all Top-Level Domains and a wide range of Value Added Services for domain management and brand protection, including secure hosting, DNS optimisation and SSL management. SafeBrands' talented R&D team has a history of innovation and has developed cutting-edge proprietary monitoring solutions used by global brands to find and take action against fraud and counterfeits. Its multi-language SaaS platform analyses millions of relevant results every day, backed up by an extensive team of IP experts.

SafeBrands' online brand protection products and expertise have, to date, been available to companies based in French-speaking markets. CentralNic plans to offer these services, which help businesses protect their revenue streams in digital channels, through its global Brand Services offering, which currently serves clients worldwide through teams based in the US, the UK, Canada, Australia, Germany, New Zealand, and other countries.

Ben Crawford, CentralNic Group CEO, commented: "The acquisition of SafeBrands 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 enterprise clients, globally. We are delighted that SafeBrands, its talented team of domain and IP protection experts, cutting-edge software and service portfolio and established business relationships, are becoming part of our Group. SafeBrands' brand protection products will help CentralNic further broaden our capabilities in this space, creating an unparalleled suite of solutions for our current and future customers."