Kape Technologies, the Israeli holding company behind ExpressVPN, Private Internet Access (PIA), and CyberGhost, has been taken fully private. The company was delisted from the London Stock Exchange in early 2026, completing a process that billionaire Teddy Sagi’s Unikmind holding group began in late 2025. Kape no longer has public shareholders or public reporting obligations.
This is a significant structural change for three of the most widely used consumer VPN services in the world. For users who care about ownership transparency and corporate accountability, it raises legitimate questions.
Background: what Kape controls
Kape Technologies built its VPN portfolio through acquisitions. It purchased CyberGhost in 2017, Private Internet Access in 2019 for $95.5 million, and ExpressVPN in 2021 for approximately $936 million, the largest acquisition in VPN industry history.
The company also owns Webselenese, a network of VPN comparison and review websites that has been criticized for operating without disclosing the conflict of interest between ownership of the review sites and ownership of the reviewed products. This was documented by vpnpro.com in an investigation and has remained a reputational concern for Kape since.
By 2026, Kape’s VPN brands collectively serve tens of millions of users across more than 180 countries.
What going private actually changes
When a company is publicly listed, it must file regular financial reports, disclose material changes to its business, and operate under the scrutiny of public shareholders. Kape’s London Stock Exchange listing meant that significant changes, including legal proceedings, infrastructure changes, or leadership shifts, were subject to mandatory disclosure.
Going private eliminates these obligations. Kape is now accountable only to its private owners and does not need to publish audited financial statements, report on user numbers, or disclose material business events to any public market regulator.
For VPN users specifically, this matters in two ways.
First, transparency around business practices and decision-making will decrease. Public companies that own VPN brands can be asked at shareholder meetings about their data practices and audit commitments. Private companies cannot.
Second, any future sale or restructuring of ExpressVPN, PIA, or CyberGhost would not require public disclosure. Kape could sell one of these brands to a buyer with privacy-hostile practices without any public announcement beyond what is contractually required.
Want to compare all VPNs side by side? Check our full VPN comparison table with scores across 18 criteria.
Does it change the privacy of these VPNs?
Not immediately. Each Kape brand maintains its own privacy policy and independent audit relationships. ExpressVPN has a Lightway protocol audit from KPMG. PIA publishes its open-source client code. CyberGhost publishes quarterly transparency reports.
These are genuine, if imperfect, privacy commitments. Going private does not retroactively nullify them. Users relying on ExpressVPN or PIA today are not in a materially different position than they were last year.
The medium-term concern is whether the reduction in public accountability will affect Kape’s willingness to continue investing in privacy infrastructure. Audits cost money and create PR risk when findings are published. Under public market pressure, maintaining these was a competitive necessity. Under full private ownership, the calculus is less clear.
How this compares to competitors
The major VPN providers that are not owned by holding companies include ProtonVPN (owned by Proton AG, a non-profit structure), Mullvad (independent Swedish company), and NordVPN (owned by Nord Security, a private but standalone cybersecurity company).
Of the independent providers, Mullvad has the most radically simple ownership structure: it is a single company with a single product, accepts anonymous payment, and has no cross-product data interests. ProtonVPN benefits from its relationship with the Proton ecosystem (ProtonMail, ProtonCalendar) but operates from a non-profit foundation that creates some structural accountability.
Our scores reflect these distinctions. CyberGhost scores 3.5/5, PIA 3.7/5, and ExpressVPN 3.7/5, partly due to concerns about the ownership structure that predated this privatization. Those scores have not changed, because the fundamental ownership concern was already factored in.
What to watch
The key question in 2026 and beyond is whether Kape maintains its audit commitments for all three brands. If ExpressVPN’s next scheduled audit is delayed, if PIA’s open-source code is quietly closed, or if CyberGhost stops publishing transparency reports, those would be actionable signals.
For now, the brands operate as before. But users who specifically chose these services because they trusted the ownership structure now have one fewer check on that trust.
Kape going private is a transparency downgrade, not an immediate privacy emergency. If you use ExpressVPN, PIA, or CyberGhost, monitor whether their audit and transparency commitments continue. If they do, your risk has not materially changed. If they start quietly lapsing, that is your signal to switch.
Keep reading: Who Owns Your VPN? The Corporate Ownership Map in 2026 and ExpressVPN Review 2026: Good VPN, Complicated Ownership.