Collabora
Verified“UK-run, Canadian-controlled, EU-deployable.”
- Founded
- 2005
- Employees
- ~150
- Ultimate control
- 🇨🇦 Canada
- Product licence
- Open source
37 = midpoint of Control 20 & Data 54
Sovereignty Quadrant
Control ↑ who owns & governs the company · Data → where your data lives. Every dot is a company — click to open it.
Every number below traces to 12 sourced facts across 10 independent sources, last verified 2026-06-12. 4 open questions hold confidence at 82% — they lower confidence, never the score.
Control ↑
Who legally and economically controls the company
Legal & Jurisdiction
25
Both operating entities are incorporated in England & Wales and registered in Cambridge — but the UK is a third country post-Brexit, so EU law does not reach Collabora by virtue of its incorporation. EU data-protection enforceability runs via UK GDPR / UK Data Protection Act and the UK adequacy bridge, not directly through an EU establishment. Not EU-incorporated, not EU-operating in the legal sense.
Why 25? 3 sourced facts · click to expand
Parent consultancy incorporated in England & Wales
Companies House · as of 2026-06-12
Product arm incorporated in England & Wales
Companies House · as of 2026-06-12
Operates under UK, not EU, data-protection law
Collabora Privacy Notice · as of 2026-06-12
Control & Ownership
15
Ultimate control is Canadian. Collabora Limited's sole person with significant control is Philippe Kalaf Holdings Inc (Canadian jurisdiction) holding 75%+ of shares AND voting rights plus the right to appoint/remove directors; Mr Philippe Kalaf is Canadian, resident in Canada. The product arm is jointly held by two UK companies (Collabora Limited and Cloudblue IT Limited), but voting and economic control trace up to a Canadian holding company. Not listed; no EU voting or EU economic majority.
Why 15? 3 sourced facts · click to expand
Ultimate controller is a Canadian holding company
Companies House PSC (Collabora Limited) · as of 2026-06-12
Controlling individual is Canadian, resident in Canada
Companies House officers · as of 2026-06-12
Product arm jointly held by two UK companies
Companies House PSC (Collabora Productivity) · as of 2026-06-12
Data →
Where your data lives and who can reach it
Data & Infrastructure
70
This is Collabora's strongest sovereignty dimension. Collabora Online / Office are 100% open source and architected for self-hosting, on-premise, or partner-hosting — user documents live wherever the customer or chosen partner deploys them, not on a Collabora-operated cloud. An EU organisation can run the suite entirely on EU-owned infrastructure (e.g. self-hosted with Nextcloud, or EU partners like Safekloud/Hetzner) with zero CLOUD Act exposure. Collabora's own corporate servers are stated to be in Europe and Canada; a small set of corporate back-office data (Google services, US invoicing) transfers to the US under SCCs, but that is corporate ops, not the product's customer data path.
Why 70? 3 sourced facts · click to expand
Flagship products are open source and self-hostable
Collabora Online · as of 2026-06-12
Can be deployed fully within the EU on EU infrastructure
Safekloud (Collabora partner) · as of 2026-06-12
Collabora's own servers are in Europe and Canada; limited US back-office transfers under SCCs
Collabora Privacy Notice · as of 2026-06-12
Operations & People
30
Operationally European-adjacent but not EU-centered. HQ and registered office are in Cambridge, UK (post-Brexit, non-EU), with a second office in Montreal, Canada. CEO/co-founder Philippe Kalaf is Canadian and Montreal-based; Collabora Productivity GM Michael Meeks is British and UK-based. Workforce of roughly 150 is concentrated in the UK and Canada. Reporting is in GBP. European footprint exists, but the operating center of gravity is UK + Canada, neither of which is in the EU.
Why 30? 3 sourced facts · click to expand
Headquartered in Cambridge, UK with a Montreal office
Collabora Contact page · as of 2026-06-12
CEO is Canadian and Montreal-based
Wikipedia (Collabora) · as of 2026-06-12
Aligned to the EU Commission’s official Cloud Sovereignty Framework (SEAL, Jun 2026) →
What we don’t know
4 open questions — they lower confidence, never the score
- ?
Where is the official Collabora Online demo / hosted service data physically stored, and on whose infrastructure (Hetzner, OVH, AWS, in-house)?
Affects the infra read for anyone using Collabora-operated hosting rather than self-hosting; could not be confirmed from primary sources.
- ?
Exact economic split and any minority investors behind Cloudblue IT Limited (co-owner of Collabora Productivity).
Cloudblue is UK-registered but its own PSC chain was not confirmed, leaving a gap in the full ownership picture of the product arm.
- ?
Latest filed revenue, profit and reporting currency for the Collabora group.
Financial scale and reporting-currency confirmation (assumed GBP) would sharpen the operations assessment.
- ?
Whether the 2026 dispute with The Document Foundation (removal of Collabora developers from TDF) affects long-term LibreOffice upstream alignment.
Could influence strategic/supply-chain durability of the product's open-source base.
EU Cloud Sovereignty Framework lens
SEAL is designed for cloud/hosting providers; Collabora is primarily a software vendor whose product is self-hostable, so this is an analogous mapping, not a certification.
Strategic
Open-source, self-hostable suite reduces strategic lock-in, but the vendor is UK/Canada-controlled and recently clashed with The Document Foundation over LibreOffice Online (2026).
Legal & jurisdictional
Incorporated and operated in post-Brexit UK; ultimate control sits with a Canadian holding company. Neither jurisdiction is in the EU.
Data & AI
Product is deployable entirely on EU-owned infrastructure with no mandatory hyperscaler; customer documents stay where the customer puts them. Strongest dimension.
Operational
HQ Cambridge UK + Montreal Canada, Canadian CEO, workforce UK/Canada-centered, GBP reporting — European-adjacent but not EU-based.
Supply chain
Built on the LibreOffice / Document Foundation open-source base; Collabora is the largest contributor, but upstream governance friction in 2026 is a watch item.
Technological
100% open-source code, on-premise capable, no proprietary cloud dependency — high transparency and exit-ability.
Security & compliance
Operates under UK DPA 2018/GDPR; self-host model gives the deployer control, but Collabora's own back-office uses some US processors (Google, invoicing) under SCCs.
Environmental sustainability
No primary-source environmental disclosures (e.g. PUE, renewable energy commitments) found for Collabora's own operations.
EU alternatives
EU-incorporated (Latvia) open-source office suite and direct Collabora competitor, but the company has Russian founding roots — diligence the ownership chain.
German-incorporated, EU-controlled collaboration platform that bundles Collabora as its office engine — an EU-headquartered way to consume the same self-hosted document editing.
French-incorporated, open-source, end-to-end-encrypted collaborative office suite — EU-controlled and EU-operated alternative for sovereign document editing.
How the method works
Methodology v2 (provisional): the score is the midpoint of two axes — Control (who owns and governs the company) and Data (where your data lives and who can reach it). Each axis is scored only on verified evidence; unknowns reduce confidence, never the score. Every input below is sourced; the weights and judgments are open to challenge.
Spotted an error? Every claim is sourced — challenge it and we correct the record.
- 2026-06-12 — Initial golden profile, authored from primary sources (human + AI review).
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Verified 2026-06-12 · Human + AI joint review (sources independently checked) · Methodology