Namecheap, Inc.

What does Namecheap own?
The Namecheap registrar and hosting brand plus the Spaceship digital identity platform. It is a product company, not a multi-brand holding group.

Is Namecheap publicly traded?
No. It is private, now majority-owned by CVC Capital Partners following the approximately $1.5 billion transaction in 2025.

Who founded Namecheap?
Richard Kirkendall founded it in 2000 in Los Angeles and ran it as sole owner until the 2025 CVC deal. He retains a minority stake and the CEO role.

Where is Namecheap headquartered?
Phoenix, Arizona, United States, with a major engineering presence in Ukraine and global support operations.

How many brands does Namecheap own?
Two main consumer brands: Namecheap itself and Spaceship, its modern platform for domains and digital products.

Who owns Namecheap?
CVC Capital Partners holds a majority stake through Domain Bidco after the 2025 deal; founder Richard Kirkendall keeps a significant minority.

How many domains does Namecheap manage?
More than 17 million, making it one of the largest registrars in the world by volume.

What is Namecheap's revenue?
Not disclosed. Industry estimates place it in the $300 million to $400 million range annually, driven by domain renewals and hosting.

Richard Kirkendall founded Namecheap in 2000 in Los Angeles, initially reselling domain registrations through eNom's platform before becoming an ICANN-accredited registrar in its own right. Its early differentiation was price plus service: cheap registrations bundled with free WHOIS privacy and responsive support.

Through the 2000s and 2010s the company grew entirely on operating cash flow, expanding into hosting, SSL, apps and services while staying private and debt-free. It cultivated an outspoken public identity: free-speech positions, criticism of SOPA-era legislation, and repeated public spats with larger rival GoDaddy.

Operational scale grew steadily. The company passed 10 million domains under management in the late 2010s and kept climbing past 17 million, placing it among the top five registrars globally by volume. It developed in-house infrastructure, opened a large operation in Ukraine, and moved its headquarters to Phoenix.

In 2020 Namecheap launched Spaceship, a next-generation platform for domains and digital products, an attempt to modernize its stack and capture a new audience without disturbing the core brand.

The ownership story changed in 2025. Kirkendall, the sole owner, agreed to sell a majority stake to CVC Capital Partners through its Domain Bidco vehicle in a deal reported at approximately $1.5 billion including debt. Cyprus and other regulators cleared the transaction, which closed that year, ending a quarter century of full founder ownership. Kirkendall kept a significant minority stake and remained CEO.

Under CVC, the company operates as a standalone portfolio asset. The thesis is standard growth-capital logic: a profitable, sticky subscription-like business in the consolidating registrar industry, with headroom in hosting and digital identity services.

The company obtained its own ICANN accreditation early in its life, moving from reseller to registrar of record, and spent the 2000s compounding a reputation built on three things: transparent pricing, free WHOIS privacy, and support quality that rivaled far larger competitors.

Its public identity was forged in industry fights. The 2011 Move Your Domain Day campaign against GoDaddy's SOPA support captured tens of thousands of transferred domains and established Namecheap as the industry's activist independent. It later tangled publicly with ICANN over the removal of price caps on .org and .info, filing formal reconsideration requests and rallying domain owners against registry fee increases.

The Ukraine operation became a defining internal fact. The company built substantial engineering and support teams in Ukrainian cities, and when Russia invaded in 2022 it maintained operations while taking public positions on the conflict, including service decisions that drew international attention.

Spaceship, launched in 2020, represented the bet that its next generation of customers would want a rebuilt stack rather than the legacy registrar interface, a platform for domains, hosting and digital identity designed separately from the core brand.

The 2025 transaction ended a quarter century of full founder ownership. Richard Kirkendall, who had bootstrapped the company with no outside capital, agreed to sell a majority stake to CVC Capital Partners through its Domain Bidco vehicle in a deal reported at approximately 1.5 billion dollars including debt. Cyprus's competition authority publicly notified clearance, and the transaction closed that year, with Kirkendall keeping a significant minority stake and the CEO role.

Namecheap has been a repeat ICANN participant rather than a sanctioned bad actor, though it has received standard compliance actions over the years on WHOIS and abuse handling. It has also attracted criticism for hosting decisions in politically sensitive cases, a standing tension for registrars that position on free-speech grounds.

The 2025 CVC transaction required competition clearances including in Cyprus, where the regulator publicly notified the deal. No structural remedies were imposed on the business itself.