Risk mitigation centric hosting, colo and cloud service provider The Bunker has secured an investment from private equity firm Palatine, amidst a reshuffle that has seen two co-founders Peregrine Newton (CEO) and Andy Theodorou (COO) cede their positions in the company, and former CTO Phil Bindley appointed as managing director. Consulting director Andy Hague will be the company’s new CEO.

The hosting company claims its data centers are the most secure in the UK: located respectively in Kent and Berkshire, both facilities are built in World War II era bunkers, the former having been used by the Royal Air Force as a command and control center 30 meters below ground, and the other to serve the same purpose for the US Air Forces. Both bunkers were upgraded to withstand nuclear weapons strikes in the Cold War period. 

The bestest 

The Bunker, Berkshire
The Bunker, Berkshire – The Bunker

Reinforced blast proof walls, steel doors, electromagnetic pulse protection, continuous monitoring and MoD trained guard dogs enforce physical security, whilst digital security is provided by private multiprotocol label switching (MPLS) networks.

The Bunker’s customers include Krystal Hosting (who pays for a dedicated suite in the Berkshire facility) and online medical exchange company Cimar (which requires hosting for its radiology image sharing web service), but most of them are in the financial sector.

The Bunker, Kent
The Bunker, Kent – The Bunker

A military strategy 

Following its investment, Palatine plans to develop the company’s cybersecurity service portfolio through acquisitions of companies which it states it has already identified, but has not disclosed. 

Andy Hague said: “This acquisition signals the first step in what I believe is a very exciting plan that I and the management team at The Bunker have been formulating in close partnership with Palatine in recent months.”

“The Bunker offers truly unique facilities, and can rightly claim to provide the most physically secure data centers in the UK. With the wave of regulatory change in the market driving the need for ever increasing data security, we will be looking to build on the facilities in place today to add a full suite of cybersecurity products and services to the already strong security centric offering. Both the excellent existing management team and myself look forward to building something very special with Palatine acting as valued and forward looking investor.”