Key Takeaways
Global domain registrar and web host Namecheap has struck a majority stake deal with CVC Capital Partners, valuing the company at roughly $1.5 billion, including debt, reports The Wall Street Journal.
Though it’s unclear how much of a stake CVC has now, it is more than 50%. Namecheap’s CEO, Richard Kirkendall, will stay on board in a leadership role.
Namecheap has had a successful couple of years: In 2023, Namecheap saw $335.6 million in revenue compared to $291.4 million the year before, showing a 15.2% growth. Then in 2024, the company’s revenue hit $398 million, an 18% increase compared to 2023.
Exclusive: CVC Capital Partners is closing in on buying a majority stake in Namecheap, in a deal that values the web-hosting provider at about $1.5 billion including debt https://t.co/1oE2zZkbz0
— The Wall Street Journal (@WSJ) September 12, 2025
Though neither CVC nor Namecheap detailed the why behind the deal, the timing tracks: The domain market itself is not as much in its prime as it once was, with most wanted .com real estate already taken (or being held onto even if the site is dead). Aftermarket prices have also surged as quick-thinking domain buyers are reselling names at sky-high prices.
Meanwhile, the hosting market is moving fast, with VPS, managed WordPress, and static hosting markets all foreseeing strong growth.
And that in itself may be exactly why Namecheap sought this capital: to move from being a registrar-first to a more full-service host that can compete with giants like GoDaddy.
Domains + Hosting = Better ROI
The Domain Name Industry Brief (DNIB) shows that .com and .net TLDs have been on a gradual yet steady slide: Q1 2024 dropped 1.3% compared to the year before, equating to about 2.3 million fewer names. Q1 2025 was not great either, down 1.5% with another 2.6 million domains.
The interesting part is that new registrations are actually up (10.1 million in Q1 2025 versus 9.5 million the year before), suggesting that more names expired or were deleted than were added or purchased. The report shows that the renewal rate for those TLDs was 75.3% for Q1 2025.
Namecheap branched into hosting in the early 2000s, rolling out basic packages, but the bigger push came later with EasyWP and Spaceship. EasyWP is their managed WordPress hosting platform and Spaceship is pitched as a next-gen registrar plus hosting, email, and site services platform.
The revenue logic is actually quite simple: Domains only bring in $10 to $30 per year per customer, while hosting — especially with add-ons like email and site builders — can bring in hundreds per customer per year.
Namecheap, of course, pushes plenty of fresh TLDs, including .ai, .shop, and all the trendy or fast-growing extensions. And they’re great alternatives to the scarce .coms and .nets, with registrars saying that these new, non-traditional TLDs are becoming a unique part of a business’s identity.
For example, domain registrar (and freshly turned web host) Porkbun commented on this before to HostingAdvice: “In 2025, we’re seeing strength in three key areas: established TLDs, tech-centric TLDs, and ccTLDs … At Porkbun.com, we’ve consistently seen demand for newer domain extensions, and our users continue to embrace them.”
But like Porkbun and Namecheap, registrars now understand that domains can only take a business so far and that depending on domain growth alone is risky. Several providers have expanded their services to include both hosting and domains, including GoDaddy, Hostinger, OVHcloud, and NameSilo.
According to Fortune Business Insights, the web hosting services market was valued at $126.41 billion in 2024, expected to reach $149.30 billion by the end of 2025, and is projected to hit $527.07 billion by 2032, showing a CAGR of nearly 20%.
So while web hosting and domains have always gone hand in hand, many providers are realizing that hosting is now the piece with guaranteed ROI behind it.
