Building A Market Leader In The Online Services Industry - Accel-KKR Case Study
Transaction Highlights
The Endurance International Group (“Endurance”) is a founder-run company providing website creating, hosting and management solutions. In October 2008, Accel-KKR led a recapitalization of Endurance. The company grew revenue over 4x in the first three years of Accel-KKR’s investment and its cash flows increased over 6x during the same three-year period.
Key Facts
- Year of Investment: 2008
- Status: Exited
- Capital to Consolidate Market Share in Fragmented Market
- Clear Customer Segmentation and Efficient, Targeted Marketing
- Expansion of C-Suite Talent
Business Overview
Founded in 1997, The Endurance International Group (“Endurance”) is a founder-run provider of online solutions to small and medium-sized businesses. At the time of Accel-KKR’s investment, the company was the fourth largest provider of website creating, hosting and management solutions in the world with over 600,000 subscribers and ranked among the top ten for domain names under management worldwide. Over the first three years of investment, the company grew revenue over 4x and increased the number of subscribers to ~2 million.
Accel-KKR first met Endurance five years before investing in the company. Accel-KKR believed Endurance had a strong team and one of the best technology platforms in the industry, but the company lacked sufficient scale to be a platform investment. As a result, Accel-KKR continued to monitor the business and its progress. In October 2008, Accel-KKR led a recapitalization of Endurance. The transaction provided liquidity to existing investors, and Accel-KKR committed to continue to provide capital to fund both organic and inorganic growth.
Results
Together with Endurance management and Accel-KKR, the strategic plan focused on profitable growth. As a result, Endurance grew revenue over 4x in the first three years of Accel-KKR’s investment and its cash flows increased over 6x during the same three-year period. In December 2011, Endurance was acquired by a consortium of investors for approximately $1 billion.
At the time of sale, Endurance has become one of the world’s leading providers of hosting and related online services for small- and medium-sized businesses – providing web hosting accounts to over 1.9 million unique customers, managing more than 7.7 million domains and delivering over 5 million applications through its proprietary cloud-based infrastructure.
Value Created
Immediately after the investment, Accel-KKR and the management team worked together to implement a strategic plan that ultimately included the following key actions:
- Executing nine add-on acquisitions.
- Launching an aggressive organic growth initiative.
- Implementing processes to segment the customer base and drive targeted marketing campaigns.
- Optimizing Endurance’s capital structure.
- Expanding the company’s management team.
- Expanding international operations.