cyber_Folks Has Over PLN 1 Billion of M&A Capacity. Hosting Is Not the Priority

The Polish group whose hosting arm still carries its name now puts its capacity for further acquisitions at more than PLN 1 billion, about 232 million euros, with management saying that activity will be concentrated in e-commerce. At a results conference on September 4, cyber_Folks executives said several deals are running in parallel, one of them very large, and that one or two could close before the end of the year. Management did not identify hosting as a current M&A priority. Yet the hosting segment accounted for about 18 percent of group revenue and 27 percent of adjusted EBITDA in the second quarter, and its operating profit rose 24 percent, faster than in either of the other two segments.

Key facts from the Q2 2026 report and the results conference, reviewed through September 7, 2026

• Firepower: capacity for further M&A estimated at more than PLN 1 billion, after the June sale of 4.3 million Vercom shares generated PLN 514.1 million in net proceeds. The net-debt-to-adjusted-EBITDA ratio fell to 0.31 times.
• Direction: acquisitions concentrated in e-commerce, per deputy chief executive Robert Stasik. Chief executive Jakub Dwernicki described one very large process and another worth tens of millions of zloty. One or two could close this year; three are unlikely.
• The hosting segment: revenue up 9 percent to PLN 47.5 million, adjusted EBITDA up 17 percent to PLN 24.2 million, margin up from 47.4 percent to 51.1 percent, capital expenditure down from 14.2 to 10.7 percent of revenue.
• The priority segment: e-commerce revenue up 63 percent to PLN 89 million and adjusted EBITDA up 36 percent to PLN 26.9 million, though the adjusted margin fell from 36.4 to 30.3 percent. Reported EBITDA was PLN 0.9 million and reported EBIT was minus PLN 8 million, with PLN 26 million of one-off costs included.
• Scale: about 233,000 hosting accounts and 388,000 domains, with hosting revenue per account up from PLN 517 to PLN 564 over twelve months.

A Balance Sheet Cleared for Buying

Much of the new headroom came from selling part of a subsidiary rather than from the operating business. On June 2 cyber_Folks placed more than 4.3 million shares in Vercom, its communications platform arm, through an accelerated bookbuilding. The financial statements put gross proceeds at PLN 520.8 million and, after PLN 6.8 million of costs directly attributable to the sale, net proceeds at PLN 514.1 million. Net cash from the Vercom transactions came to PLN 484.0 million, after cyber_Folks purchased an additional 252,526 Vercom shares from two of Vercom’s co-founders for PLN 30.0 million in late June. Its share of voting rights stood at 31.44 percent at the end of the half, down from 50.12 percent, and it says it retains control and continues to consolidate Vercom in full. The effect on the balance sheet was immediate: net debt to adjusted EBITDA fell to 0.31 times, from 1.33 at the end of 2025 and 1.51 two years before that. In the quarterly report, management writes: “We currently estimate our capacity for further M&A transactions at more than PLN 1 billion.”

That capacity is not an abstraction for this company. Its recent record includes a 49.9 percent stake in Shoper, then the Romanian host Hosterion, for 6.7 million euros, both in 2025, and PrestaShop, bought through cyber_Pixel, a subsidiary in which the group holds 79 percent. That deal was agreed in the fourth quarter of 2025 and completed on February 18, 2026, with 53.97 million euros paid at closing for 100 percent of the shares. The merger with Shoper was registered on September 1, with cyber_Folks issuing 3,215,165 new shares to Shoper’s shareholders. Against that record, a stated billion-zloty capacity and several live processes read as an active pipeline rather than an aspiration, which is how Dwernicki framed it at the conference when he said the two processes he described were both possible this year “despite declaring that there would be no M&A this year”.

Hosting Is the Highest-Margin Segment, Not the M&A Priority

What makes the announcement worth the attention of hosting companies is not only the size of the group’s M&A capacity, but the segment management has prioritized. Stasik told the conference that the group places the greatest emphasis on e-commerce, expects the fastest growth there, and that its M&A activity “will also be concentrated in this segment, because that is where we see our strategic advantages”. Management did not identify hosting as an acquisition focus.

The three segments in the second quarter, as reported. Adjusted EBITDA follows the group’s own definition: EBITDA excluding share-based incentive costs and material one-off income and expenses. In e-commerce, the material one-off items were transaction and restructuring costs. Segment figures do not sum to the group totals. Source: cyber_Folks Q2 2026 report.

Read the table and the contrast is visible from both directions. The cyber_Folks segment, which is hosting, domains and adjacent services, has the smallest revenue of the three and the highest margin, at 51.1 percent, up from 47.4 a year earlier. Its operating profit grew fastest, 24 percent, and its capital expenditure fell in absolute terms, from PLN 6.2 million to 5.1 million, or from 14.2 to 10.7 percent of revenue. This is a mature, high-margin business with costs growing more slowly than revenue. The report attributes the faster growth in profitability to stable costs and a focus on higher-value products. It explains the lower research and development spending separately, as a structural change: development of e-commerce products has been moved out of this segment and into the e-commerce one.

The e-commerce segment is growing much faster, but has a very different financial profile. Much of its increase reflects the consolidation of PrestaShop, Sylius and BitBag from February 18, though the report says organic growth contributed as well. Its adjusted EBITDA was slightly above that of the cyber_Folks segment, but its margin fell while the hosting segment’s rose, and its capital expenditure more than doubled.

The reported lines went the other way. EBITDA fell 95 percent to PLN 0.9 million and EBIT turned negative, minus PLN 8 million against plus 9.8 million a year earlier. The gap between reported and adjusted EBITDA is PLN 26 million of one-off costs, which the report itemizes as PLN 25.4 million of restructuring and PLN 0.6 million of transaction costs tied to the PrestaShop acquisition, with a further PLN 1.58 million impairment on the discontinued _Stores product weighing on EBIT. The segment is carrying substantial acquisition and restructuring costs while its adjusted EBITDA continues to grow.

Revenue per Account Is Growing Faster Than the Account Base

The hosting numbers underneath are worth a closer look, because they show revenue per account growing faster than the number of accounts. The segment ended the quarter with about 233,000 hosting accounts, up roughly 12,000 in a year, and about 388,000 domains, up 18,000. Both bases grew about 5 percent.

Revenue per hosting account over the trailing twelve months went from PLN 441 two years ago to 517 last year and 564 now, a rise of about 9 percent in the last year and 28 percent over two. Domain revenue per unit moved the other way, from 112 to 110. Revenue per account is therefore rising faster than the account base, which is the pattern we described in July as the industry’s new growth model, after GoDaddy grew revenue per user 19 percent over two years while losing 604,000 customers. The company does not break the increase down, and it need not be price alone: the report credits product development and a focus on higher value products, which covers upselling and changes in customer mix as readily as list prices.

What a Seller Should Read Into This

For hosting owners in Central and Eastern Europe, the practical content of this announcement is a narrowing. A buyer with several acquisitions behind it since the start of 2025 has capacity, has said it is looking, and has said where. A hosting business seeking an exit is now looking at a buyer whose declared appetite is elsewhere, unless the target offers a broader strategic rationale, such as access to a new geography. The Hosterion deal shows the group still buys hosting when the asset extends its footprint into a market it wants, in that case Romania, so the door is not shut, only narrower than a billion-zloty headline suggests.

The second reading is about how the group weighs growth against current profitability. The group is publicly reporting a hosting business at a 51 percent adjusted EBITDA margin with capital expenditure under 11 percent of revenue, while prioritizing acquisitions in a segment growing much faster but at a lower adjusted margin and with substantial restructuring and transaction costs. That suggests growth and strategic fit carry more weight in its M&A agenda than current segment margins alone, and it is a public signal of where a listed European buyer would rather deploy its next zloty. Anyone taking a hosting company to market in the region should expect to meet that comparison across the table.

About the Data

Segment and group figures come from cyber_Folks’ quarterly report for the second quarter of 2026, its interim condensed consolidated financial statements and the accompanying investor presentation, all published on September 2, 2026 and read on September 6 and 7, 2026. Quotations from the results conference of September 4 are as reported by PAP Biznes; the translation is ours. Segment figures do not sum exactly to the group totals because of consolidation adjustments, so the shares of group revenue and adjusted EBITDA are calculated against the reported group figures. The euro figure is ours, converted at the National Bank of Poland rate for September 4, 2026.