Kape Technologies
British-Israeli computer security company
From Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia
Kape Technologies plc (formerly Crossrider Ltd.) is a British-Israeli company[1] owned by businessman Teddy Sagi.[2] Kape owns the VPN service and cybersecurity companies CyberGhost, Private Internet Access, ZenMate, ExpressVPN, and Intego.[3]
| |
| Formerly | Crossrider |
|---|---|
Company type | Private |
| Industry | Information security |
| Founded | 2011 |
| Founder |
|
| Headquarters | London, United Kingdom |
| Owner | Teddy Sagi |
| Subsidiaries |
|
| Website | kape |
The development center of Kape is located in the Azrieli Sarona Tower in Tel Aviv.[4]
History
2011-2017: Crossrider
Crossrider was founded in 2011 by Smueli Achdut and Koby Menachemi.[5]
In late 2012, Israeli businessman Teddy Sagi acquired Crossrider for $37 million. The company went public on AIM at a value of $250 million. Crossrider started off by making a software development kit (SDK) for the deployment of browser extensions to a variety of platforms with support for monetizing extensions.[6][7] The monetization options were used by major ad injectors which used man-in-the-browser to change or add advertisements to what users saw.[7] Over time, Crossrider's services became increasingly utilized by malware and adware developers and the company was unable to combat misuse.[7]
In May 2014, it acquired Ajillion for $2.2 million and Definiti Media for at most $12 million.[8]
In June 2016, following the appointment of new management team, the company changed its strategy to focus to cyber-security with a focus on digital privacy and protection of digital data.[7] In practical terms, the company stopped its browser SDK business to focus on the VPN sector, purchasing CyberGhost VPN in 2017.[9]
2018-current: Kape Technologies
In March 2018, the name of the company was changed to Kape Technologies plc.[10]
Kape purchased VPN services Zenmate in 2018, Private Internet Access in 2019 and ExpressVPN in 2021.[11][12][13][14] It also acquired the VPN service review publisher Webselenese in 2021.[9]