Your.Online has completed more than 60 acquisitions, so its latest move surprises. Instead of buying a trust company, the Dutch hosting and digital services group announced Invicta Trust Services on October 1 and built it from nothing. Patrick Beckman Lapré leads it. He joins from QuoVadis, the qualified trust service provider DigiCert acquired, and he brings more than two decades in PKI, digital identity and qualified trust services.
Your.Online supplies long-term capital, knowledge and a peer network of entrepreneurs, while Beckman Lapré runs Invicta independently. Meanwhile, the new unit will start inside the environment of Reconi, an existing trust business in the group, until it sets up its own technical and commercial base.
The timing tracks directly with eIDAS 2.0. The European Commission’s Regulation (EU) 2024/1183 requires member states to roll out EU Digital Identity Wallets by the end of 2026, and it pushes trust services into new territory, covering electronic ledgers and remote signature creation devices. Your.Online reads those rules as a signal that trust services are no longer standalone products but a foundational layer that digital infrastructure now has to sit on.
However, nobody simply declares themselves qualified. A provider must first pass an audit by an accredited conformity assessment body. Then it applies to the supervisory body in its country, which should verify compliance within three months. Only after the national trusted list adds the provider may it sell a qualified service. A qualified electronic signature carries the same legal effect as a handwritten one across the EU, so regulators guard that status closely.
Invicta’s website reflects that sequence. It lists advanced electronic signatures and seals as available soon, and it marks qualified status as in progress. A second phase would add qualified signatures, seals, time stamps, validation and electronic attestations of attributes.
Behind Invicta stands a sizeable group. Reconi specializes in Dutch eHerkenning and PKIoverheid, and DigiTrust, Avensus, Aangetekend and NordLEI also sit in the trust and security segments. Your.Online reports more than 1.3 million customers and over 1,000 employees, and it counts Gandi and o2switch among its hosting brands.
Building takes longer than buying, since no audit or supervisory review comes with a purchase order. Invicta will show whether the group’s patience matches its appetite.
