Gandi
Verified“French-run, Dutch-owned, EU-hosted — with US money in the cap table.”
- Domains under management
- ~2.5M
- Employees
- ~150
- Data location
- FR + LU
- Owner since 2023
- Your.World (NL)
78 = midpoint of Control 80 & Data 76
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 14 sourced facts across 10 independent sources, last verified 2026-06-12. 3 open questions hold confidence at 80% — they lower confidence, never the score.
Control ↑
Who legally and economically controls the company
Legal & Jurisdiction
85
Incorporated and operated in France as Gandi SAS (Paris, SIREN 423093459), fully subject to French law and GDPR, with CNIL designated as lead supervisory authority. The operating entity sits squarely in the EU; the parent chain (Your.Online → Your.World) is Dutch, so still EU. EU law reaches Gandi directly and with full enforceability.
Why 85? 4 sourced facts · click to expand
Legal form and registration
Annuaire des Entreprises (data.gouv.fr) · as of 2026-06-12
Registered office address
Gandi privacy policy · as of 2026-06-12
Governing law / lead regulator
Gandi privacy policy · as of 2026-06-12
French holding entity controls Gandi
Pappers (Gandi.net SAS 847727914) · as of 2026-06-12
Control & Ownership
75
Voting/control is EU-held: Gandi was acquired by Total Webhosting Solutions (NL) in 2023, branded Your.Online, now consolidated under Dutch group Your.World, whose majority shareholder is the Dutch family office Strikwerda Investments. The economic and voting majority sits in the Netherlands (EU), and the company is privately held with no foreign listing. The caveat: in Jan 2025 Your.World took €800M of preferred equity from US firms Ares Management and Carlyle — financing/credit rather than voting control, but it places US capital in the structure.
Why 75? 4 sourced facts · click to expand
Acquired by Total Webhosting Solutions
Domain Name Wire · as of 2023-03-02
Majority shareholder of the group
Your.Online — About Us · as of 2026-06-12
US preferred-equity investment in parent
Carlyle press release · as of 2025-01-28
Prior owner sold stake
Montefiore Investment · as of 2023-02-21
Data →
Where your data lives and who can reach it
Data & Infrastructure
80
Gandi runs its own hosting platform in EU datacenters — France (Paris, incl. Equinix colocation) and Luxembourg (LuxConnect) — not on a US hyperscaler like AWS/Azure/GCP. That removes the dominant CLOUD Act/foreign-law exposure most 'EU region' hosts carry. Core customer hosting data stays in the EU. Minor caveat: Gandi's privacy policy acknowledges some personal data may transfer outside the EU (24-hour support across group offices incl. San Francisco/Taipei, and registries operating in third countries), governed by SCCs/DPAs.
Why 80? 3 sourced facts · click to expand
Datacenters in France and Luxembourg
Gandi Nextcloud hosting page · as of 2026-06-12
Own platform, not a US hyperscaler
Gandi News (FR-SD3 opening) · as of 2017-05-15
Some data may transfer outside EU
Gandi privacy policy · as of 2026-06-12
Operations & People
70
Operationally EU-centered with a French core: HQ in Paris, French-led product and support, EUR reporting, and now part of a Dutch (Zwolle/Amsterdam) group. But the workforce is global — about 150 employees across three continents, with offices in Paris, Luxembourg, San Francisco and Taipei — so it is not purely EU-staffed. Net: EU-anchored operations with a modest international footprint.
Why 70? 3 sourced facts · click to expand
HQ and office footprint
Gandi — About Us · as of 2026-06-12
Workforce size and spread
Gandi — About Us · as of 2026-06-12
Parent group operations base
Your.Online — About Us · as of 2026-06-12
Aligned to the EU Commission’s official Cloud Sovereignty Framework (SEAL, Jun 2026) →
What we don’t know
3 open questions — they lower confidence, never the score
- ?
Exact equity/voting split between Strikwerda Investments and any co-investors in Your.World, and whether the Ares/Carlyle preferred equity carries any governance/board rights.
If the US preferred equity conveys consent rights or convertibility, effective control could be less purely-EU than the voting-majority picture suggests, lowering the ownership score.
- ?
Whether Gandi still self-operates its hosting fleet post-2023 acquisition or has begun migrating workloads onto group-shared or third-party (possibly hyperscaler) infrastructure.
A migration to a US-hyperscaler-backed group platform would materially weaken the infra score.
- ?
Current precise employee count and EU-vs-non-EU split after integration into Your.World.
Affects the operations score; the ~150 figure may predate group integration.
EU Cloud Sovereignty Framework lens
SEAL targets cloud service providers; this is an analogous sovereignty mapping for a domain registrar/host, not a formal SEAL certification.
Strategic
EU-controlled (Dutch group, French operating co), but strategic direction now set by parent Your.World and influenced by US-backed €800M financing.
Legal & jurisdictional
French SAS under French law and GDPR; CNIL lead authority; full EU enforceability over the operating entity.
Data & AI
Customer hosting data in France/Luxembourg EU datacenters on Gandi's own platform; SCCs cover limited non-EU support transfers.
Operational
Paris-run with EUR reporting, but ~150 staff across three continents and now integrated into a Dutch group.
Supply chain
EU colocation (Equinix FR, LuxConnect LU); domain registries and some sub-processors sit in third countries by nature of the business.
Technological
Self-operated hosting/cloud stack rather than reliance on a US hyperscaler; long-standing independent infrastructure.
Security & compliance
GDPR-aligned, CNIL-supervised; no public SEAL/SecNumCloud certification confirmed in sources.
Environmental sustainability
No verified data on energy mix or datacenter sustainability claims found in primary sources.
EU alternatives
French-listed, French-owned hyperscaler and registrar; own datacenters across the EU. A larger, fully EU-controlled peer.
Independent, privately held registrar/host with own Swiss datacenters and strong privacy stance — but Switzerland is not in the EU.
French independent registrar; fully EU-incorporated and operated, useful as a domain-focused EU alternative.
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