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Kape Technologies buys ExpressVPN as part of a $936 million deal

A leading VPN is joining a company with a concerning past.

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Rae Hodge Former senior editor
Rae Hodge was a senior editor at CNET. She led CNET's coverage of privacy and cybersecurity tools from July 2019 to January 2023. As a data-driven investigative journalist on the software and services team, she reviewed VPNs, password managers, antivirus software, anti-surveillance methods and ethics in tech. Prior to joining CNET in 2019, Rae spent nearly a decade covering politics and protests for the AP, NPR, the BBC and other local and international outlets.
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ExpressVPN has been acquired by Kape Technologies.

 Sarah Tew/CNET

One of the industry's leading virtual private networks, ExpressVPN, has been sold to software provider Kape Technologies as part of a $936 million deal announced Tuesday. In a release, Kape said the acquisition will more than double its overall customer base, from almost 3 million customers to more than 6 million.

The purchase of ExpressVPN is Kape's latest move to broaden its footprint in the commercial digital privacy and cybersecurity industry, following a 2018 name change aimed at distancing itself from its past as adware distributor Crossrider. In a blog post, ExpressVPN said it would remain a separate service from other Kape brands, that its jurisdiction would remain in the British Virgin Islands and that it would continue to uphold its policy of not logging user web traffic. 

"The ExpressVPN team is delighted to be joining the Kape Technologies family. It was essential to us that anyone we teamed up with shared our strong fundamental commitment to user privacy, and Kape has demonstrated that in spades through its family of brands," ExpressVPN co-founder Dan Pomerantz said in a press release. 

CNET will continue to update this story as it unfolds. 

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