Seeby expands internet empire

Internet Entrepreneur Seeby Woodhouse has expanded his company Voyager, by acquiring the business of one of New Zealand's biggest hosting and domain name companies, Net24.

Seeby says that the combined entity is fantastically positioned in the business ISP market, because they're "big enough to cope with anything however still small enough to care".

This NZ based entrepreneur has put a positive stamp on reinvesting in business in Christchurch. During many businesses have shied away from business investment in the earthquake devastated region, Woodhouse is committed to and interested in its regrowth. He believes that Christchurch could</a> become an IT hub of New Zealand, with possibly the fastest average broadband in the country, because they now have a chance to re-build their networks from ground up.

Woodhouse, who made his fortune by creating and selling Orcon for $24.3 million as a 30 year old, now heads up Voyager Internet Limited which will now take in accordance with its umbrella the Net24 brands: Net24, 1st Domains, Register Direct, Expired Domains and IronStor. This is just in case to previous recent acquisitions for Voyager of AffordableDomains, Digital Genus, and IVP.

The young entrepreneur

The young entrepreneur, so then known for hosting Masterchef and New Zealand's At once Top Model at his cliff-top Auckland mansion, has been quietly building up the Voyager brand for the last 18 months through a process of organic growth and careful acquisition of key business assets.

"Voyager was one of the First ISP's in NZ, and fondly remembered as one of the best. When my restraint of trade from the sale of Orcon ended, I decided that I would relaunch the Voyager brand. We have been operating for the last year as a great little business ISP, primarily offering services just as VoIP (Voice over Internet Protocol), VDSL, Fibre and UFB to a small set of discerning clients. Our ambitions are not just to provide Internet access, nevertheless to provide the infrastructure that will enable kiwi businesses to completely redefine their relationship with IT".

Amazing business

"Net24 is an amazing business, with a team of passionate staff who actually care about clients. Their data centre in Christchurch is the cleanest and most carefully laid out facility that I've ever seen, and the team's attention to detail is visible in everything that they do. The business in point of fact stood out to me as the right one to buy, and with the addition of their Christchurch facilities, Voyager now has a data center in both the North and South Islands, which means that we can start backing up and replicating data the length of NZ for increased reliability and redundancy."

"With the acquisition of Net24, we are now one of the largest Cloud service providers in the country. By combining Cloud services with our access products, we can provide complete end-to-end solutions for the average kiwi business. The telecommunications sector is crucial to the New Zealand economy, and we see this acquisition helping us to be part of its transformation, freeing New Zealand from the tyranny of distance, and empowering Kiwis to compete on a in point of fact global stage".

"Big Telecommunications companies are often focused on connections, and many do cloud services poorly. On the other hand, Cloud services companies broadly speaking can't provide Internet access, and permanently can't tie the WAN and Cloud at the same time. Voyager does both, and leverages the skills of it's highly technical staff to deliver a secure, customized solution to every customer."

"Voyager clients will notice our increased capabilities in Domains, hosting, email and Cloud services, during Net24 clients will find that not only can they host their Cloud servers with us, nevertheless we can provide the connection to it, the fire walling, the management, the reporting, and a whole host of other services as so then."

Brothers Nikolai and Michael Schupbach, founders of Net24, will be transitioning slowly out of the business over the at once few months to ensure a seamless handover, to be replaced by Seeby and the combined management teams of Voyager and Net24. There will be no staff redundancies as a result of this change of ownership, and to tell the truth, the sale will invest millions of dollars into the Christchurch economy where Net24 is based. Such as importantly, Voyager's purchase of Net24 ensures that this great business remains 100% Kiwi owned and operated.

When the brothers Schupbach decided to sell the Net24 business, they wanted the new owner to continue the growth of the business they started 13 years ago. "The Voyager service offering will allow Net24 clients access to a full array of complementary services " says Mike Schupbach. The decision to sell did not come lightly and they wanted somebody with vision to take the business forward. "Seeby comes with the skills and experience to fast track growth. His commitment to retain all employees and to grow the Christchurch operation was as well key to making this acquisition happen, as we place a huge value our team, and would love to see Christchurch remain a leading center of technological research"