Miss Group at 10 - the growth journey

This year, Miss Group marks 10 years in business, having grown from a single hosting firm in Sweden to a global digital solutions business serving over one million customers. Here, our founder Mattias Kaneteg discusses the brand’s growth over the last decade.

Hi Mattias and thanks for sitting down with us! Tell us about how you founded Miss Group and what your aims were for the company when it launched in 2014.

I founded Miss Hosting - the first company in what is now Miss Group - in 2014, with a simple aim: to be the fastest-growing hosting company in Swedish history. I wanted to go from zero to 100,000 customers in as short a time as possible! I launched the business with no additional funds raised and invested in a strong and experienced team from day one, as we were trying to break into a very mature market at the time.?

Miss Group has grown very quickly, thanks in large part to a ‘buy and build’ acquisition strategy as well as an ongoing focus on customer support and retention. Was that always the plan?

Yes - I planned to chase mergers and acquisitions from the outset as I believe this is the best way to grow quickly. Organic growth can’t deliver the same rate of development as can be achieved through M&A activity. At first, merger and acquisition activity was focused in the Nordics, but over the last 10 years we’ve done deals in the UK, US, Baltics, Spain and Switzerland to name a few.?

Tell us about the name. Why did you choose ‘Miss’ as your brand?

This is a good story! I wanted something memorable and fun, something that would give us lots of ammunition for marketing and that our customers would take notice of. At the time of launch, Go Daddy was a major brand in hosting in the US and I’d watched them with interest. I liked the idea of using a gendered persona, but decided to go on the female line with ‘Miss’, in order to encourage female entrepreneurship and greater female representation in tech.?

As we acquire new businesses, they fall under the Miss Group banner but most keep trading under their existing name. This helps us retain local recognition, which supports customer acquisition and retention, and it also helps many sellers keen to pursue a deal with Miss Group because their business names (that they have often built from the ground up) remain and we want to honour the value that’s been created.?

What are you proudest of over the last 10 years with Miss Group?

There is so much that I am proud of! Last year, we broke through the 1bn SEK in revenue barrier and we’re forecasting a 2024 revenue target of €110m with a 44% EBITDA - both incredible milestones that we dreamed of back in 2014!?

I’m also proud of our acquisition journey. Over the last 10 years there have been over 30 deals, and each one of them is important to me. We’ve built a strong track record and some brilliant relationships right across our industry.?

Thanks Mattias!?

Find out more about Miss Group at missgroup.com