First, I'd like to thank you for your participation in this thread. As a long time PIA customer (until recently), I trusted (and still continue to trust) the current staff. All of my hesitation is with Kape and I truly hope at the end of the day they don't end up steamrolling you.
That being said, if the company was profitable, why even entertain this merger? I simply don't see how getting into bed with a company with such a sordid past is worth it if you were able to make it on your own.
My guess is to partially cash out. According to the doc, the two founders each got about 26m cash and 21m equity in Kape, while PIA only had 14m EBITDA per year and 31m debt. So it's certainly a nice cash windfall for the founders.
I don’t know anything about the industry, but my guess is that being a big VPN company puts a target on your back. Everyone pretends they care enough about privacy to use a VPN, but the vast majority of users commingle environments and identities to the point that, IMO, they can be tracked across VPNs.
VPNs are mainly for piracy and it’s only a matter of time until big media takes a shot at suing someone. No one wants to be that someone, so selling to anyone becomes attractive. I doubt there’s a lineup to buy a company who’s main talent is under assessing risk.
That being said, if the company was profitable, why even entertain this merger? I simply don't see how getting into bed with a company with such a sordid past is worth it if you were able to make it on your own.