Strato

In 1997, as the internet was moving from a niche curiosity to a mainstream tool, Marc Alexander Ullrich and Norbert Stangl saw a gap in the market. Web hosting in Germany was complex and expensive, creating a high barrier for individuals and small businesses to get online. Their idea was to simplify this process, offering standardized, automated, and affordable web hosting packages. They founded STRATO in Berlin to give people without deep technical knowledge a straightforward path to their own homepage. STRATO's journey saw rapid changes in ownership. Shortly after its founding, the founders sold the company to Teles AG in 1998. In 2009, Deutsche Telekom acquired STRATO for 275 million euros, aiming to bolster its own hosting business and making STRATO the number two web hosting provider in Germany. This chapter of its story focused on growth and solidifying its market position. A significant shift occurred in late 2016 when United Internet AG acquired STRATO from Deutsche Telekom for approximately 600 million euros. This move was part of a broader consolidation in the European hosting market. The acquisition integrated STRATO into a larger family of internet service brands, including IONOS and 1&1, expanding its reach and resources. Today, STRATO operates two major data centers in Germany, serves over two million customer contracts, and manages more than four million domains, a testament to its evolution from a simple idea into a major European web host.