Investment firm purchases majority stock in Comodo certificate division

31 October 2017

Today, Fransisco Partners announced they have purchased a share in Comodo Group’s Certificate Authority division. Comodo products and brands will remain maintained.

What has changed exactly?

Comodo has sold a majority share of their certificate division to US-based technology investment firm Francisco Partners. Comodo’s Certificate Authority division will operate independently to expand and optimize their SSL certificate deliveries. Comodo CA’s management team has been expanded with Bill Holtz, former Entrust COO, as CEO. Furthermore, Melih Abdulhayoglu, Comodo’s founder and former Comodo CA CEO, will keep a Comodo CA share and will act as advising board member.

The Comodo Group will aim at offering custom security solutions, software and scans for the enterprise market, lead by Melih Abdulhayoglu.

Why has this change been made?

The security industry is growing exponentially. Francisco Partner’s capital injection allows Comodo CA to grow faster by investing more. Comodo currently has the largest market share for domain validation certificates and is one of the largest organizations in the SSL certificate industry. Developments in the market, such as Let’s Encrypt and the discussion between Symantec and Google allow Comodo CA to increase their footprint for organizational and extended validation certificates.

How does this affect Comodo users?

The acquisition supports Comodo both financially and in terms of experience, thus allowing Comodo to rapidly expand the tools offered. First and foremost, Comodo focuses on keeping current users satisfied. Products currently offered by Comodo will continue to be developed and Comodo’s root certificates and browser support will remain the same. As such, current Comodo users will not experience any negative effects as a result of this change. It is expected that this development will positively affect Comodo’s organizational capacity to meet the ever-growing demands for SSL certificates and other digital certificates.