Infomaniak, the Swiss hosting and cloud provider that spent three decades building itself into a privacy-focused alternative to American hyperscalers, is going public. But the way it chose to do so deliberately keeps control from slipping away in the process.
Rather than pursue a standard IPO, Infomaniak announced on July 29 that it is reverse-merging into Perrot Duval Holding, a Swiss company that has traded on the exchange since 1905. Perrot Duval will acquire all of Infomaniak, and Infomaniak’s owners will receive newly issued Perrot Duval shares in return, with the combined entity carrying Infomaniak’s name going forward. Perrot Duval, historically a small industrial holding company, is clearing the decks for this shift. It has already agreed to sell its stake in an unrelated cosmetics and automation business to that unit’s own management team.
Here’s the part that actually matters for a privacy-first company willing to go public: the Infomaniak Foundation, a public-interest body, will hold majority voting control through shares that neither list on exchanges nor transfer to outside parties. The founder and certain employees add to that, leaving insiders holding a commanding majority of control over the company. Outside investors can buy shares, but they cannot buy their way into control, and no takeover moves forward without the foundation’s approval.
That’s a meaningful departure from what’s been happening across European hosting lately, where private equity firms keep absorbing independent brands into larger roll-ups. Infomaniak is essentially building the opposite outcome directly into its corporate structure, reaching public markets while making independence a permanent, structural feature rather than just a founder’s personal commitment.
The company frames the listing as a way to fund new Swiss data centers, aimed at meeting growing European demand for sovereign cloud services, infrastructure where data and jurisdiction stay within Europe rather than routing through US-based providers. Infomaniak is no small operation either: the company recorded CHF 54.2 million in 2025 revenue, up from CHF 47.6 million the year before, employs more than 300 people, and serves around 300,000 paying customers, all without taking outside funding since 1994.
Going public gives Infomaniak access to capital it couldn’t easily raise as a private company, which matters given how expensive data center hardware has become. The market’s early reaction skewed toward Perrot Duval’s side of the deal rather than Infomaniak’s: Perrot Duval shares dropped as much as 9.8% after the announcement, reflecting concerns tied to that company’s existing financial position rather than any judgment on Infomaniak itself.
The timeline runs through the fall, with a shareholder vote scheduled for September 24 and the deal targeted to close around September 25, pending regulatory approval.
